


Against the Odds

by MelyndaR



Series: Insurrection Trilogy [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 31,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23856406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: As Gres watched T'Pel so effortlessly wrangle her brood, he began to wonder if maybe, if they led this disjointed crew together, their journey wouldn’t be so difficult.He could only hope.
Relationships: Chakotay & Samantha Wildman, Greskrendtregk & T'Pel (Star Trek), Greskrendtregk/Samantha Wildman, Kathryn Janeway/T'Pel (Star Trek)/Tuvok (Star Trek), Kes & Samantha Wildman, Naomi Wildman & Samantha Wildman, T'Pel/Tuvok (Star Trek)
Series: Insurrection Trilogy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704517
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, in case anyone is wondering after looking at the tags, this is the story where "Meeting of the Minds" starts to become a little more important, just because it introduces half the characters that are in this story. If you haven't read it yet, I would recommend doing so, just so you have a better understanding of what my version of Tuvok and T'Pel's family looks like before you head into this story.

_ Vulcan, 2371: _

T’Pel screamed. Her legs gave out from underneath her and she crumpled gracelessly to the ground as her bond with Tuvok was painfully _strained_ in some way in the back of her mind. Townspeople turned to stare at her; people she’d grown up around watched her sudden agony warily as the contents of her fruit basket rolled in every direction. The marketplace went silent… but for the footfalls of two people hurrying toward her. 

“Mother?” Assan asked, failing to keep the worry from his expression and tone as he went to his knees beside her.

“You’re ill,” Asil concluded at a glance, letting Assan see to T’Pel as she collected their goods from the ground.

T’Pel shook her head. This wasn’t just an illness; she felt like some part of her mind had nearly _broken off_ , and it _hurt_.

“Let me help you, Mother,” Assan requested, helping T’Pel struggle onto her feet even as he spoke. He took one look at her and added, “Let’s go home.”

She wanted to object – she didn’t want to make such a shameful scene and then flee – but she couldn’t gather her thoughts enough to speak, could only move her wooden legs enough to let her son help her from the marketplace.

When they returned to their home, Sek called a physician. On one hand, the physician frowned at her and declared that her inert state was a human condition.

“She is ‘in shock,’ as the humans say. Something happened that her mind couldn’t process, and she appears to have lost control of her mind until she processes the event fully.”

On the other hand, he touched her and looked into her mind, and after a moment muttered, “Impossible…”

“What do you mean?” Sek asked the physician. “’Impossible?’”

The physician looked uncertain now as he said, “Her marital bond… Theoretically, it has always been believed that there is a limit to which the bonds can go before they begin to be… taxed and weaken. I… am inclined to believe that is what is happening here.”

“That ought not be relevant here,” Sek pointed out. “My father is travelling no further than the Badlands. He’s gone further away from my mother in the past.”

The physician shot T’Pel a considering look, and she knew what he was going to suggest before he even said it. “Perhaps, then, it is due to the ‘shock’ that your mother is experiencing, or some other fault because of her human genes.”

She watched a muscle tic in Sek’s jaw – ever the child of both their father _and_ mother, her poor progeny – but he nodded, accepting the lackluster diagnosis as he and Asil showed the physician to the door.

* * *

_ USS Voyager _

“Are you alright?” When Tuvok looked at Captain Janeway, her eyes were still half-wild even as she posed the question, checking on him.

But he knew it was no small wonder that she was checking on him. His breathing was erratic, and he was gripping the edge of the security console so tightly that the veins were bulging from his sweaty hands. He was in pain the likes of which he’d never experienced before… but there were things to do – many, many things to do as they tried to discover what had happened to _Voyager_ , and the Maquis ship, the _Val Jean._

He wasn’t about to complain for himself, or further worry his commanding officer. Despite the desperate ache in his head, the pathetic trembling of his legs, and the worrying understanding that he had no idea what had just gone wrong in his own mind, he declared through half-gritted teeth, “I am fine, captain.”

She gave him one more glance over, decided she didn’t believe him, but moved on anyway. Like him, Captain Janeway understood that they were too busy to stop, and the two of them had learned to come to one another when they could be useful to one another. He would come to her at a better time if she could help.

But as they began to understand what had happened to them, and just how far away from home they were, Tuvok got the sinking feeling that no one could help him. It was days before he could get away to his quarters for an acceptable meditation session, and what he found when he managed it only confirmed his fears.

His telepathic link to T’Pel had been damaged by the sudden and astronomical distance put between them. It hadn’t broken, like he had feared it might’ve, but it was damaged and weak, like a heartbeat that sounded only faintly yet hadn’t surrendered to death entirely. She was there, just enough, in the back of his mind, so that he could tell what she was feeling if he concentrated, but he couldn’t project his own feelings to her. They were no longer bonded in the way that two married Vulcans ought to have been – they seemed to have inadvertently stumbled upon the distance that two of their species could go from one another without their telepathy suffering for it. This far from her, though, he told himself that he ought to be grateful that their bond was still there at all.

He also promised himself that, since she already had so many responsibilities and worries crowding up her mind and her day, he would not be telling the captain what had occurred in his mind. There was no reason to give her another worry, or one more thing to feel guilty about, he decided resolutely.

* * *

_ Vulcan _

Two days after T’Pel’s… disdainful display in the marketplace, she was feeling only mildly more functional, and not at all better mentally. Something told her that her mental stability – at least concerning her bond with her husband – wouldn’t be returning to normal until he was there in front of her, explaining whatever phenomenon he and Kathryn had come across in their work that had caused the disruption in the first place. It was a terrible, helpless feeling of waiting – though she refused to identify what it was that she was waiting for until it occurred.

Sek, as the oldest male in the house, had been taking care of their familial affairs outside of their home in order to give her time to recover. Asil, as the only daughter, had been taking care of things inside of the home, and Assan, as the child of hers who could most closely… _empathize_ with her pain, barely left her side.

Sek was the one who answered the door when someone knocked on it, and from the settee in the sitting room, T’Pel thought she recognized the voice even if she couldn’t make out what was being said. 

“Shall I go see who it is, Mother?” Assan offered, setting aside his book.

She shook her head as she heard Sek declare something to the effect of, “My mother is unavailable, ill, in fact, but I would be glad to speak with you.”

There was a quieter murmur of voices – T’Pel was sure now that the parents of Asil’s bond-mate were in her entryway – and then Solik came through the sitting room, stepping into the kitchen to say, “Asil, you’re needed outside.”

As Solik and Asil came back through the sitting room together, T’Pel asked her son, “Is everything alright?”

His gaze skittered away guiltily as he reported, “Sek only asked me to retrieve my sister. I will let him explain what’s happening.”

However, Sek left with Asil and the parents of her bond-mate, and when she returned with her link to her bond-mate as obliterated as her betrothal to her bond-mate had been rendered, it was fairly obvious what had happened. Because of T’Pel, her worst fears had been realized, and her mixed ancestry and T’Pel’s emotional display in the marketplace were suddenly costing the family dearly.

When Asil returned, no longer betrothed and moving across the living room with her head held a little too high, T’Pel offered softly, “I am sorry, my daughter.”

“Never mind, Mother,” Asil said levelly, and looking in her dear, emotionless face, T’Pel couldn’t even tell how much she might or might not have minded the broken betrothal as she continued, “I’m going to go meditate for a while now.”

“Alright,” T’Pel said gently. _What else could she say that her daughter would accept?_


	2. Chapter 2

For five more days, all Tuvok and T’Pel’s sons held their breath. For Assan, that statement felt far more proverbial regarding his brothers than it did for himself. Still, at the end of the week, his mother was almost back to herself, his father was due to return soon, Asil was recovering remarkably well from the stressful removal of her telepathic bond with her former betrothed, and Assan slowly began to breath easily again.

He’d done so too soon, though, he discovered.

A knock sounded at the door, Sek answered it, and then called Assan into the entryway – all of it sickeningly reminiscent of what had so recently happened to Asil. His bond-mate’s parents were talking to Sek, and Assan could make out the shape of his bond-mate’s silhouette on the other side of the front door.

Suddenly, fiercely, he hated her, and he made sure to project that _feeling_ through their weak bond. Her amusement resounded back in his mind as she made it clear how she felt. _You don’t hate me_ ; she informed him through their bond, a self-important woman who knew how to put on a good show when it mattered. _You hate yourself for being what you are._

Their mental snit made her all the more willing to walk with him to the priestess and have their bond and betrothal broken, like her parents wished, and, frankly, for the time being, it had the same effect on him. He was the most emotional of his siblings, so if he didn’t feel anything about her removing herself from his life, it must’ve been because he genuinely didn’t care to have her there, he decided.

Somehow, the worst part of that terrible, wonderful day turned out to be just how right she’d been about how he viewed himself. 

_ You don’t hate me; you hate yourself for being what you are. _

* * *

_ Deep Space 9 _

_ They weren’t back yet. _

The crew of _Voyager_ had been gone for a month on a three-week mission, and they had yet to return to Deep Space 9. From what Gres had heard through the grapevine, _Voyager_ hadn’t even checked in with Starfleet since their second week in space, which was worrying enough without the missed deadline. By now, they’d passed the point where people were starting to talk and speculate aboard the space station; thankfully, they’d reached the point where there was about to be a briefing for relevant civilians on the status of the ship, and Gres wasn’t going to accept being anywhere but in the front row for that explanation. 

Luckily, being Ktarian on Deep Space 9 meant that as often as not, people gave him plenty of room to pass by them without interference. He’d never pointed that fact out to Sam, but he had no problem whatsoever using it to his advantage now, and he ended up standing near the front with a gray-haired human and a handful of dark-skinned Vulcans.

Some Starfleet admiral informed them that Starfleet command had lost contact with _Voyager_ two weeks ago. The whole ship and crew had just vanished from their sensors entirely, there and then gone – gone somewhere so far away that Starfleet couldn’t get a lock on their position, apparently.

He wasn’t the sort of man to panic, Gres reminded himself firmly as the admiral started saying that they were working on the theory that _Voyager_ had encountered an unexpected wormhole and been sucked into it and deposited into another part of space. He halfway tuned the admiral out. He knew better than most of the civilians in this room that space changed on a daily basis, but he also knew the point in the Badlands that they’d been headed for better than most did, and the conditions out there were difficult for fully-formed wormholes to come into existence.

“Move onto your next theory!” a human woman in the crowd called out, possibly thinking something like what Gres was, two little boys starting to cry into her waist as they realized that their father had been lost.

Gres turned instinctively towards her, willing to try and help her calm her children if he could, but before he moved more than a step, the elder of the two Vulcan women beside him swayed dangerously. He unthinkingly grabbed her elbow, noting the disgruntled look one of the men with her shot him as he helped her from her other side.

“Are you alright?” Gres asked automatically, glad for something to do besides quite possible lose it at the news they were being given.

She nodded tiredly, leaning into the other man, but she was clearly disturbed. _Who blamed her? He certainly didn’t._ “My husband, and one of our dear friends, are aboard one of those ships,” she explained softly.

Their quiet conversation had drawn the attention of the man on Gres’ other side, who turned to the Vulcans, saying with quiet conviction, “I’m engaged to _Voyager_ ’s captain; I understand your worry, but I promise you that Captain Janeway will do whatever she possibly can to bring your people home.”

“Oh.” Brown eyes met brown eyes, and for the moment, Gres knew he was being completely ignored. “I know she will,” the Vulcan woman said, her tone even now, but filled with an undercurrent of conviction as she asked carefully, “Mark Johnson?”

“That’s me.” The gray-haired man nodded, looking at the Vulcan family curiously now.

“I am T’Pel,” the Vulcan explained, gesturing to her family as she added about each in turn, “And this is Sek, Solik, Assan, and Asil.”

They were names that this Mark Johnson had clearly heard before, and he nodded at the introductions, saying politely, “It’s a pleasure to meet you all – though obviously I wish it had been under better circumstances.”

“Mm. Indeed.” T’Pel turned to Gres, asking as her children turned their attention back to the still-talking lieutenant, “And you are?”

“Gres,” he volunteered, pausing a moment before he added, “Greskrendtregk Wildman. I’m married to an ensign aboard _Voyager_.”

He stopped himself before he could say more, about the baby they were expecting, about how this was Sam’s first away mission, about how she’d worked her whole life to get into Starfleet like her father before her, about how this just _wasn’t fair._

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Wildman.” T’Pel reached out, her fingers just barely brushing his arm in a very un-Vulcan display of compassion as she added kindly, “And Mr. Johnson is right. Captain Janeway will get her crew home as soon as she can.”

Already, Gres knew that it wasn’t going to be soon enough for his liking.


	3. Chapter 3

_USS Voyager_

A week later, Samantha took one more deep, steeling breath before she called out. “Computer, activate EMH.”

“Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” the holographic doctor requested dryly.

Immediately, stupidly, Samantha’s first thought was that this hologram had none of Dr. Bashir’s warmth, and on the heels of that thought was the biting, agonizing realization as it hit her once again: forget Dr. Bashir; _Gres_ wasn’t going to be here – for _any of it_ , at this rate. But still, no matter the other kinds of despair she was currently feeling, at the moment she had a daughter to protect.

“Have you read my medical file?” she asked the EMH.

“Of course I’m up to date on the medical files of the Starfleet personnel,” he said, sounding eternally offended.

“Then you know of my condition?”

“Ensign Samantha Wildman?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“You have no preexisting medical conditions, so you must mean the fact that you’re expecting,” he hypothesized.

She nodded. “That is what I mean, yes.”

“I am aware of that, yes, and of your previous history of miscarriages. Are you here regarding Dr. Julian Bashir’s prescribed treatment for preservation of fetal wellness?”

Samantha blinked at him. Science officer though she may have been, she was not used to dealing with medical holograms and their extremely literal, technical way of speaking. At least she’d been through the medical courses and could understand his terminology. “I am, yes.”

Sighing at having to get his own instruments, the EMH gestured for her to lie down on a bio-bed while he received a medical tricorder.

“I believe it may be time for the baby’s blood merger,” she informed him.

“Your opinion is noted, and if I find it to be correct, I will perform the procedure accordingly,” he assured her.

“And… Doctor?” she asked hesitantly, watching his face as he scanned her with the medical tricorder.

“Yes?”

“If you could… I would prefer that no one knew about my… about the pregnancy for now.”

_The last thing she wanted was pity from her crewmates if something went wrong with this baby like it had the others._

It was his turn to give her a startled look, his mouth set in a thin line as he said, “I see no reason to believe it should come up with anyone else unless you’ve told them.”

“But if it does somehow come up, you won’t mention it to anyone?”

“Of course not. I did take the Hippocratic oath, you know.”

“Not even the captain?” He narrowed his eyes at her in silence until she added, “I just… want to tell her myself.” _She’d never said_ when _she planned on telling the captain… because she didn’t know herself yet._

“Very well;” he agreed. “I’ll endeavor to ensure it doesn’t come up even around the captain.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

He nodded briskly before ordering, “Now, if you don’t mind, you were correct in your belief regarding the merger. I would like to proceed with it now, and it’s far more comfortable for you and less stressful on the fetus if you are sedated during the procedure.”

She’d almost forgotten about that part, even though she’d gone through this with Nathan, too, albeit in very different surroundings. “Of course, Doctor. I don’t mind at all.” _After all, this was what it took to keep hers and Gres’ baby safe… or at least safe for now._

* * *

_Vulcan_

“Be safe, my sons,” she said, laying a loving hand first on Sek’s cheek, then on Assan’s as she added, “I know you will make your family proud. We will come to see you soon, alright?”

“Yes, Mother,” her boys chorused together – boys going, as their father and “Aunt Kathryn” so often had, to board a shuttle that would take them wherever Starfleet wanted them to be.

In this case, Sek and Assan were on their way to San Francisco, California, to Starfleet Academy, and she was fiercely proud, and increasingly worried, to see them go. But she knew it was what they both wanted to do, and so she gave them one more approving nod, as prepared as she was ever going to be to send them on their way.

They were halfway down the road together when Assan turned and ran back, pulling something from his pocket. “Mother,” he gasped when he stood in front of her once again. “A messenger gave this to me yesterday; I nearly forgot.”

She nodded evenly, giving nothing away yet as she took the message from him. “Thank you. Now, you must go, and hurry; you can’t miss your shuttle, and it won’t wait for you.”

 _Nothing was waiting,_ she thought to herself, waiting until Sek and Assan were out of sight to open the message. _Already time was marching on. It was strange, she’d spent longer periods of time away from Tuvok and Kathryn than this, but the past six – particularly the past two – weeks had felt longer, and different._ Already she’d decided to herself that she hated it.

_But, then again, what else was she supposed to do but carry on? Given time, these things would all sort themselves out… wouldn’t they?_

Shaking off her worrying thoughts, T’Pel looked down at the message, expecting to see the same results that she’d seen for decades. But the test results weren’t what she was expecting.

_…Because she was expecting._

_This was the worst possible timing,_ she decided immediately, staring down at the test results in barely concealed horror.

“Mother?” Solik asked, moving to look over her shoulder as he caught sight of what T’Pel knew was her strange expression. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” T’Pel tucked the results into a pocket of her dress, hoping she’d moved quickly enough that she’d kept the test results from his curious gaze. “Just the results from a routine test.” _Which was the truth._

Given that all of her pregnancies had followed her and Tuvok’s _pon farrs_ – a not entirely normal occurrence – she’d gotten into the habit of routinely taking a pregnancy test after each one. With the issues with _Voyager_ coming up not long after the couple’s most recent _pon farr_ , time had gotten well away from her, and she’d only recently had the test done, more to preserve her sense of normalcy than any suspicion that she might _actually_ be with child.

But she was. _Gods help her._

“Are you alright?” Solik asked, an edge of concern overtaking the curiosity that had been on his face moments ago. “You look ill again.”

“I am fine, my son,” she promised, deciding on the spot that there was no reason to concern her children before she could help it. _If nothing else, she could tell all four of them when they all reunited for the first time in San Francisco._

The thought that concerned her more for the moment, though, was: _How was she supposed to get the information to Tuvok?_


	4. Chapter 4

_ San Francisco, California, Earth _

_ She had never really considered it before _ , T’Pel thought to herself, walking up the path to Starfleet Academy, _but Vulcan clothing really was a blessing in disguise to her right now._ She was nearly halfway through her pregnancy, and no one suspected a thing yet, because she’d been periodically loosening the belt around her waist – the only part of her clothing that made it known that she had a waist at all – and one could barely notice that she’d put on any weight.

… _At least, those who saw her frequently didn’t notice anything amiss._ The way Sek and Assan were both eyeing her as they approached her, Solik, and Asil, made nervousness slither in her chest, though.

Still, they said nothing about the curiosity they clearly felt according to the expressions seen by a mother’s eye, going through the usual greetings and updating their mother and siblings on their lives here. The five walked together across the grounds, not in any real hurry, just enjoying being in each other’s presence. This sense of togetherness with her children was something that T’Pel had found herself… appreciating the longer Tuvok and Kathryn were away – and it made it that much harder for Sek and Assan to be living here.

“Where are you?” Assan asked thoughtfully, coming up and putting her arm through his. “You don’t look as though you’re here precisely.”

“I was just thinking,” she explained vaguely.

“What about?” Sek asked.

“Your father and Aunt Kathryn, in a way,” she admitted. _They were almost always at least in the back of her mind these days._

“What of them? Has there been any news of _Voyager_?”

“No. None that we know of.” She raised her eyebrows, asking, “Have you heard anything?”

“No,” Sek replied shortly.

“But speaking of Father,” Assan said, a thread of strained merriment in his tone as he squeezed her arm where it rested in his. “When he returns,” he leaned in close to her, smirking ever so slightly as he asked, “Is there something special you’ll have to tell him?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” T’Pel said, letting a teasingly haughty tone creep into her voice, but when Assan gestured for her and Asil to sit on a bench, her three sons crowding around them, she admitted, “Yes, I am with child. You are correct in that your father didn’t know when he left; I only found out when you and Sek left to come here.”

“But that would mean that you must be nearly halfway through,” Asil said, surprise flashing through her eyes where she wouldn’t let it come through in her voice. 

“That’s true. Perhaps…” she smiled hopefully at them, determined not to let her growing worry on the topic show. “By the time the child is in my arms, your father will be at my side, with all of you.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” someone said sourly from the nearby bench.

T’Pel and her children all looked up in startled surprise at the rudely interrupting stranger… except he was no stranger; they’d met him before. “Mr. Johnson?”

Mark Johnson’s gaze snapped with surprise as well as he sat up straighter, recognizing her. “T’Pel! …And children. Hello.”

“I apologize for him.” The man to whom Mr. Johnson had been speaking, who’d had his back turned to T’Pel and her family, moved to face them now. “I’m afraid we couldn’t help but overhear.” He released a sigh, adding, “And we’re feeling a little frustrated right now.”

“Mr. Wildman,” T’Pel remembered.

The alien man nodded, trying to put on the sort of expression that would invite socialization, but neither his nor Mr. Johnson’s “heart was in it,” she could tell.

She glanced back at her children, who knew very well what she was about to do, to check that they wouldn’t be annoyed with her before she asked, “Why are you frustrated, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I suppose you wouldn’t mind knowing what we’ve been up to, either, but,” Mr. Johnson released a frustrated breath. “We’ve got no good news to tell.”

“What do you mean?” Sek asked.

“We’ve been trying to squeeze more information out of Starfleet,” Mr. Wildman gestured in the general direction of the Starfleet headquarters building. “But no one will give us an inch, or any answers that aren’t… scripted by an admiral.”

Mr. Johnson glanced as Sek and Assan’s cadet uniforms before he said, “No offense, gentlemen, but it feels like Starfleet couldn’t care less about us right now.”

T’Pel hummed thoughtfully. “If I may… experience tells me that you were never going to get very far with the people at headquarters. My husband has been with Starfleet for decades. Whenever something goes wrong… I hate to say it, but headquarters has never been very good at communicating with the civilians affected. But don’t mistake that for not caring about their officers. I have faith that they’ll do everything they can to bring our people home… we just may not know anything about it until they’re already on their way back to us.”

Both men looked at her for a moment, and it was Mr. Johnson who said, “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. It’s the thought that has, thus far, helped me stay… sane. Besides, Vulcans are incapable of lying. If I say I believe it, then I do.”

She saw suspicion flash momentarily through the eyes of both men, and only smiled serenely with her eyes in return.

“Maybe that helps me a little, then,” Mr. Johnson admitted, checking his watch as he added, “Thank you for saying it. But I’m afraid I have a meeting further downtown soon. I have to go.” He pointed at Gres, asking, “Do you want to meet up here again next month?”

Mr. Wildman looked back towards the seemingly self-important headquarters building, and T’Pel watched him struggle – between trusting what she had said as a more experienced, Starfleet-adjacent civilian and fighting for his wife himself as best he could – before he nodded at Mr. Johnson. “Same date?”

Mr. Johnson nodded before he hurried away. “I’ll call you a week before so we can get the rest of the details ironed out.”

As he left, Sek checked the time for himself as he asked rhetorically, “What time is it?” and then realized aloud, “My apologies, Mother, Solik, Asil, but Assan and I have to return to our classes now. If you wish, we could direct you towards your guest quarters before we go?”

“Thank you, but we know where they are, and we don’t want you to be late. Go, my sons.”


	5. Chapter 5

The two cadets obeyed their mother, and when the Vulcan daughter, Asil, mentioned wanting to purchase a cup of tea from a nearby vendor on the grounds, T’Pel cast a glance at Gres before she said mildly, “Solik, accompany your sister.”

In short order, Gres found himself alone with the poised Vulcan lady as she commented, “You… have more you wish to say, I think.”

Gres hesitated to say anything, but she’d pretty much asked. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I thought I heard you mention that you were… expecting?”

Something shuttered momentarily in her expression, even for a Vulcan, but then she did her best to smooth that expression out as she replied lightly, “Yes, I am.”

“And I understand your husband is stranded aboard _Voyager_?”

She nodded, but her polite expression was already starting to wear thin as she waited for him to get to his point. _Maybe he shouldn’t say anything…_

And yet, he did anyway. “I know it’s a strange thing for me to say—” In the back of his mind, he heard an echo of Sam’s reproachful tone, thinking of what she would say to him just now, and he added, “Probably even bordering on impertinent, but…” he swallowed, admitting, “My wife, when she left, she was expecting, too, and…” he produced a business card for his antiques stall with his name and contact information on it and handed it to her. “I don’t know if you’ll need help until your husband gets home, but if you do, get in touch with me, and I’ll do whatever I can to make your life easier. Or you can ignore me; I would understand that, too,” he offered mildly.

She, T’Pel, studied him for a moment, but she didn’t insult him by directly questioning his motives, so he let her stare at him if she wanted, if that’s what it took for her to decide he wasn’t problematic. “Thank you,” she said haltingly after a second, a bit less graceful and sure of herself when she spoke. “For the offer. I may… take you up on it sometime. I…” she hesitated, looking at him through narrowed eyes before she tried again. “I had hoped I was the only one who… felt as if… something is different this time, but I’m not, am I?”

“I’m sorry,” Gres admitted. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean?”

“I’ve dealt with Starfleet before, with… my husband’s missions going in an unplanned direction before – with Starfleet, I’ve come to understand that’s to be expected – but this time is different. Every other time, when a ship has veered off course, or a mission has otherwise gone awry, the ship has at least still been… locatable, on sensors _somewhere_. Now, from what I’ve heard, they’re in headquarters scanning, and rescanning, and still not finding any sign of them.” She swallowed a sigh, giving voice to the niggling fear she’d been pushing away as she said, “Who knows how long it will be before they locate _Voyager_ … and even then… who knows how long it will be until _Voyager_ ’s crew is home again.”

Gres sat with her in silence for a moment, trying to decide what to say, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. Like with Mark Johnson, he had found someone who understood what he was going through, and she was trying to work through it too. Maybe, in a small way, they could work through it together for a minute.

“You’re not wrong,” he offered, knowing that she already understood that. “But maybe that’s why, for now, while they’re gone, there are people like Mr. Johnson and I, who are going to remain pains in Starfleet’s ass until we get real answers.”

She gave him a tiny, wry smile as she said with eyes full of sadness, “I promise you that will not work. I don’t even know if it will help at all.”

“Maybe not,” he allowed. “But it makes us feel like we’re doing _something_ about it all, and for right now, that’s kind of what’s keeping me, for one, sane.”

“That… makes sense,” she admitted. “I am not sure how I would be ‘keeping sane’ if I did not have my children to care for right now.” She turned to look at him fully now, a considering look on her face as she said, “Maybe, if – gods forbid it – they are gone long enough, I will join you in being ‘a pain in Starfleet’s ass’ one day.”

Gres bit back a grin at hearing a Vulcan say such a thing, telling her, “I’m not saying you’re not doing your part as you are, keeping the home fires burning, but if you did ever decide to join us when we come here, I’d be glad to have you.”

She gave him another almost-smile and nodded, glancing over to check on Solik and Asil, and he could practically see her thoughts wander. “I’m not certain I even know how to keep the home fires burning right now,” she admitted in a near-whisper.

“How so? You have four nearly-grown children, and if two of them have gotten into Starfleet Academy, then you’ve clearly done a good job of raising them.”

“Yes, and no. By Starfleet standards, I know you’re right, but… not necessarily by the standards of Vulcan. My husband was always our children’s teacher of traditional Vulcan knowledge – meditation, mental and emotional control, even kal-toh.” She laughed, soft and humorlessly, but it still caught Gres off-guard, and even a passing cadet did a doubletake. “I hate kal-toh, and I struggle with my own controls over my mind, so how am I supposed to teach them to a child?”

 _Oh._ Now he thought he understood.

T’Pel glanced at him, and her eyes instantly widened as she realized what she’d done. In a very human display of emotions, she buried her head in her hands, groaning with her mortification. Just as quickly, she straightened, staring straight ahead with a rigid posture and expression both as she said, “I am very sorry. That was entirely inappropriate of me.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Gres said, choosing his words carefully. “Everyone needs someone to talk to, even about their fears.”

She twisted her hands before laying them precisely on her thighs, replying, “You’re mistaken. Vulcans do not feel fear.”

“Are you sure?” Gres asked, trying to keep his tone careful as he looked at her, this Vulcan who, moments ago, had looked very much afraid. “Because I feel like there’s…” he paused, considering whether he wanted to take this route with a Vulcan, but he went ahead anyway. “A certain logic to fear.” She arched an eyebrow, and he took that as her indication that she a better explanation, so he tried to give her one. “Fear is a response to stimulus, right? It’s meant to warn us that something is wrong or dangerous, based on our life experiences. It keeps us safe, and that makes it useful.”

“None of which negates the fact that it is, at its base, an emotion, and thereby unacceptable to proper Vulcans.”

Gres shrugged. “I won’t argue with you,” he answered easily. “We have separate beliefs, and I’m okay with that.” He sat back, crossed his arms comfortably, hoping that she, in turn, would relax too. “I’d like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at multiculturalism in the course of my marriage.”

“Why in that time frame?” T’Pel asked, seemingly eager to change the subject even as she tacked on, “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Not at all,” Gres smiled lopsidedly. “My wife’s human. I, clearly, am not. We’ve learned how to coexist, how to appreciate each other’s points of view and culture. I’d like to think we’ve come to accept each other ‘warts and all,’ as the saying goes.”

He almost added something about how he worried for his wife, too, pregnant and uncertain if she would even stay that way – because he _was_ very, desperately afraid for her and their unborn baby – but he decided that now wasn’t the time, and this wasn’t the place, and maybe T’Pel wasn’t even the right person. Right now, it was T’Pel’s turn to let off some steam about this situation, and, specifically, the situation she was left in because of _Voyager_ ’s continued absence. If she was going to talk about her own fears regarding her children, single parenthood, and her husband’s absence, he could put aside his woes for a moment to focus on hers, to be a good listening ear even if they didn’t know one another well at all.

It was, after all, what he hoped someone was doing for Sam.


	6. Chapter 6

_ Vulcan _

_ It was strange,  _ Gres thought to himself as he paced T’Pel’s sitting room, _the things that could make friends out of strangers._ Earlier in the year, he and T’Pel had talked, really talked, for the first time at Starfleet Academy, and since then, they’d kept in touch. They’d bonded over their similar concerns, and they’d become friends. Now, towards the end of the year, he was waiting with Solik – as honorary godfather – for Asil to announce that T’Pel and Tuvok’s fifth child had been born.

Nothing but Solik’s eyes moved as he watched Gres pace. Breaking the silence between them, Solik asked, “Does pacing truly help alleviate your nervousness?”

Gres shrugged. “Not really. It just gives me something to do.”

“Because you are nervous?”

“Yes,” Gres agreed. “I guess I am.”

“Why? It’s not your child.”

“No,” Gres kept eye contact with him as he walked. “But your mom is my friend, and this is my godchild, and I want everything to go well for both of them.”

“I agree,” Solik replied. “But I don’t see how that translates to nervousness for you.”

Gres chuckled dryly, giving in to Solik’s nearly unspoken request as he sat down. “Well, I guess that’s good for you, Solik.”

As soon as eh sat down, Asil slipped into the room, and Gres stood back up as she told Solik, “We have a sister.”

“Congratulations,” Gres said with a smile.

“Thank you,” Asil replied before telling Solik, “Mother says she would like to see you now.”

Solik nodded and followed Asil back to T’Pel’s room. A step behind Solik, Gres made it all the way to T’Pel’s bedroom doorway before the midwife blocked him from entering with a steely gaze.

“It isn’t proper,” she said by way of explanation, as if she was speaking to a child.

“Let him in, please,” T’Pel called, pleasant enough but tired, from inside the room. “He is my daughter’s godfather.”

“Vulcan children don’t have godparents,” the midwife objected.

“This one does; let him in,” T’Pel replied smoothly.

The midwife moved grudgingly aside, and Gres smiled sickly sweet at her, internally reminding himself to stay calm at the scathing look the woman shot T’Pel. 

T’Pel ignored her entirely, gesturing him towards the bed where she lay with a wriggling brown bundle in her arms. “Come meet Alessi,” she bid him, and he did as asked, even though the situation suddenly felt far too intimate, and he was hit with a wave of knowing that _this_ was not where he wanted to be. 

Not really.

Not when, as he looked at little Alessi’s face, all he could wonder was whether or not his own child had lived this long. Sam wouldn’t have given birth yet, anyway; given the unusual growth rate of human/Ktarian children, she wouldn’t even be showing yet, but he didn’t care. Alessi was not the baby he wanted to hold, and T’Pel was not _at all_ the woman he wanted to see, and as soon as he left here, he was going to—

A strong hand gripped his arm, and when he looked down, ripped from his thoughts, he was startled to see tears glistening in T’Pel’s eyes as she said softly, “I know. I miss my people, too. Desperately.” Then she straightened as well as she could as she added firmly, “But that’s why we’re friends now, so that we can have each other nearby when it matters – like now.”

When she moved to hand Alessi to him, Gres took the baby in his arms with uncertain hands, taking a moment to adjust her in a way that was comfortable for both of them before he said to T’Pel, “Thank you for letting me be here today.”

T’Pel studied his expression for a second, and Gres decided some of his thoughts must’ve still been showing on his face despite his best efforts to the contrary, because when she spoke it was with a quiet ferocity that said she really meant it as she replied, “Thank you for coming when I asked you to be here.”

“Of course.” Gres looked down at the squished face of the baby in his arms and smiled despite himself at her disgruntled expression. Running a finger gently down her cheek, he asked brightly, “Who would willingly miss seeing a newborn baby?”

* * *

_ USS Voyager, 2372: _

Samantha had been careful. For their entire journey thus far, she had been painfully careful – as much as one could be when one was made a department head on a starship in the Delta Quadrant – but now her window of opportunity was starting to close.

Ktarian/human children didn’t begin to truly grow until nearly a year into their eighteen-month-long gestation period, but, as with the rest it would be for the rest of the baby’s childhood, when they grew, they grew rapidly. Now Sam was facing the point where her condition was soon going to become obvious to anyone and everyone aboard… and the horrible truth was that she understood she had options to consider.

Laying in bed in her quarters, she stared blankly up at the ceiling, wide awake and thinking things through even though she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to consider that after all of hers and Gres’ attempts at having a child, after having finally carried a child through the first two _trimesters_ of a pregnancy not just the first two months… _Voyager_ might just be _that_ bad of a place to have a baby. She needed to really weigh her options – what it would look like if she gave birth, what it would look like if she had an abortion, should she give birth, but give the baby to a stable, normal family on a life-sustaining planet?

Frustrated, she pressed her hands into her eye sockets until her eyes hurt, resisting the urge to scream as she sat up, flung her blankets aside, and lurched onto her feet. _She needed to set her feelings aside for a moment_ , she told herself logically, _and think about this a little more categorically. If she could perform surgery on her husband on a concrete floor, she could consider her daughter’s life and future without getting overwhelmed by it._

_ So, option one: what it would look like if she had an abortion? _

While she understood that for some, for any number of reasons, this was a necessary, even desirable, course of action, here and for herself, it almost made her physically sick. She knew as soon as she thought it once more that she wouldn’t be able to abort the baby that she and Gres so wanted… that she already loved. 

So, that meant that she would be giving birth aboard _Voyager…_


	7. Chapter 7

_ Giving birth aboard  _ Voyager _, however, didn’t automatically mean she would raise the baby herself, though,_ Samantha reasoned. That led her to option two: _should she give birth, but give the baby to a stable, normal family on a life-sustaining planet?_

The idea didn’t make her insides curdle nearly as much as the idea of an abortion did, but still… she knew herself well enough by now; she knew what she was and wasn’t capable of. If she ever held her child in her hands, she was not going to be able to hand them over to someone else, much less leave them behind. 

_ What then? Had she just decided by process of elimination that she was going to give birth and raise a baby by herself aboard  _ Voyager?! _That was insane!_

_ But then again, she was Starfleet, and by now she understood that “insane” was something of a regular occurrence on this ship. Why shouldn’t she join in the insanity with a little piece of her own? _

The thought loosened something in Samantha that she hadn’t even realized had been coiled tightly in the pit of her stomach. She smiled, suddenly sad, energized, petrified, and determined all at once, her mind made up as soon as she let herself realize what she’d already decided to do months ago. She laid a hand on her still-flat stomach and whispered to her baby in the darkness, “Alright, sweetheart, we’re in this together.”

_ And they were going to manage it just fine _ , she promised silently.

* * *

Deciding to have her baby aboard _Voyager_ came with hurdles, though, Samantha realized, the first of which had to be telling the captain what was going on. _There were ways to do this,_ she told herself, _without making it obvious that she’d been hiding the pregnancy until she’d been absolutely positive what to do about it. After all, it didn’t_ necessarily _have to be anyone’s business until it was obvious, right?_

Now that her condition was about to be obvious, though, she knew it was about to become a topic in the ship’s lightning-fast rumor mill if she didn’t set the record straight before rumors could even get started. So, before she could talk herself out of it – or, unfortunately, get a better speech prepared – she rang the chime to the captain’s ready room while she was already nearby after one of her more interesting days on the bridge.

“Come in,” the captain responded mildly, and Samantha gave her an equally mild, painfully flitting smile as she did so. “Yes, ensign, what can I do for you?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, captain,” she replied, trying not to outright stumble over her words. “But I thought—”

Samantha didn’t realize until that moment just how quiet she’d become on this extended mission. _What had become of the young woman who’d taken care of herself on the streets, who’d pickpocketed her pickpocket of a future husband, who’d shoved her own stepbrother out of her home rather than succumb to his abuse for the first time in years? Had the grief – the loss of so many pregnancies, most of the_ Karma _crew, and, finally, in a way, Gres – done this to her? To avoid fights with either of them or the same sort of treatment the Maquis gave Lieutenant Paris, she hadn’t even spoken to – had outright avoided – Commander Chakotay and Lieutenant Torres this whole voyage._

_ That had to change; she had to rekindle the strength in herself. Right now. Because she had something worth fighting for once again. _

Still, for her to decide to talk, to not be afraid of her own voice in this place _now_ , with such a heavy and personal conversation necessitated, wasn’t easy. She drew herself up a little straighter, approached the captain’s desk as the woman in charge stepped behind it. “—I thought I should inform you of my physical condition.” 

“’Your physical condition?’” the captain repeated curiously.

Samantha glanced away, gathering her thoughts for a split second before she turned back to Captain Janeway and explained, “We’d been trying for months. I wasn’t even sure until a few days ago.” _That she was going to keep the baby, that was,_ but she was too ashamed of that fact to admit it aloud _,_ and she hurried on instead of doing so. “My husband is still at Deep Space 9; he doesn’t even know. We were only supposed to be out two or three weeks.”

She hated the tremor in her own voice – this was not the same young woman who’d first met Gres in a back alley of Ekaris III – and she heard herself starting to ramble, trying to explain it all in a rush, as the captain came around the desk, approaching Samantha as stopped her by asking forthrightly, “Wildman, are you pregnant?”

Samantha pressed her lips into a thin line, refusing to give way to the ball of tears clogging her throat as she nodded.

The captain nodded, remaining frighteningly silent, and Samantha rushed to fill that silence, rambling again as she was suddenly struck with the fear that maybe, out here in the Delta Quadrant where not all of Starfleet’s rules always seemed to apply, Captain Janeway would try and _tell_ her whether or not she could keep her baby aboard the ship. 

“I know this isn’t the best place to have a baby, but…” There was a second where Samantha considered telling Captain Janeway the story of the struggle that she and Gres had been through just to have a family, but her tears were already too close to the surface for her own comfort, and she knew she’d begin crying if she spoke of any of the three little ones they’d lost. _Better to tell a truth that floated a little closer to the surface most days; it still hurt, but somehow, right now it seemed a little easier than speaking of all the times she’d failed to give her children life._ She still nearly started crying as she admitted another truth about the baby in her womb. “It’s all I have left… of my husband.”

She glanced away before the captain could see the tears in her eyes, but her gaze snapped back to Captain Janeway’s face as the other woman said, “Well, congratulations, ensign.”

Smiling, Samantha released a breathy laugh of shock before her face fell back into its persistently troubled frown once more, and that was when she finally noticed the emotions in her captain’s eyes as well. “Thank you, captain,” she replied kindly.

Captain Janeway blinked, regaining control of her own emotions as Samantha did the same. “Wildman,” she promised evenly. “I’ll get you and your baby home.”

Samantha hadn’t talked much to the captain, but her drive and determination were the stuff of legends on the ship, and when she worked on the bridge, “set a course for home” was something Samantha regularly heard the captain say. She smiled again at Captain Janeway, saying, “I know you’ll do your best, captain.”

There was a difference in their two statements that neither woman commented on, but a very large part of Samantha was a woman of science, and there was math to be considered here. Timelines, and… deadlines, so to speak – _no dreadful pun intended_.

The chances of Samantha seeing Gres again were very slim but being able to send their child back to him instead made her ache slightly less.

The captain could read between the lines of her statement enough to understand some of her thoughts, but somehow she found the pleasant spin to put on their situation and said, “And if I’m too old to captain this ship by the time comes into port at Deep Space 9, maybe there will be a Captain Wildman in my chair as they meet their father.”

Samantha released another breathy laugh of surprise. “Maybe,” she allowed.


	8. Chapter 8

Captain Janeway studied Samantha again for a second before inquiring carefully, “Do mind if I ask when you’re due?”

“Not for another six months.”

Captain Janeway raised her eyebrows. “Then your husband is not…”

Samantha hated that she stilled, her expression staying polite as her mind went to yellow alert. “Human?” she asked, keeping her tone even and kind. “No, he’s Ktarian.”

Which had been no small thing on Deep Space 9, a Cardassian-originated, Federation station when, by and large, Ktarians were regarded as having a complicated relationship with the Cardassian-Federation conflict. In general, as a people, Ktarians were technically aligned with the Federation while still being able to sympathize with the Cardassians… and that had caused problems and biases towards Gres on Deep Space 9.

Never mind that he was the exception to the rule, and very much didn’t sympathize with the Cardassians, people were going to take one look at him and pass whatever judgement they wanted. Not everyone had, no, but a great many had, and it had wound Samantha tight sometimes – like now – while Gres had receded into his shell a little. She hated it for him.

Though he’d liked to pretend that she didn’t notice what he went through – and she’d often gone along with it, knowing he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it – she’d meant it when she’d encouraged him to make some friends while she was gone. With as long as they’d been in the Delta Quadrant, she desperately hoped he’d taken her advice, or she now knew from experience that the loneliness could start to eat you alive. 

Captain Janeway noted her tension, but didn’t comment on it, drawing Samantha out of her thoughts by asking, “Do you know if the child will need special accommodations because of their heritage?”

Samantha shook her head. “They shouldn’t. The child will age rapidly, but that shouldn’t affect their life here.”

“Perfect,” Captain Janeway replied. “Will there be anything else, ensign?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

Samantha started towards the door, and the captain nodded at her in reply, a small smile playing across her face as she said, “And ensign? I’m truly happy for you.”

She was worried, too, Samantha could see that much, but who could blame her when she felt the same way herself? Samantha let the joy win out over the worry – after all, _she was going to have the child she and Gres so wanted!_ – and smiled at Captain Janeway as she repeated, “Thank you.”

* * *

_ Vulcan _

The crew of _Voyager_ had been gone over a year now, and T’Pel could officially allow herself to admit that she was tired of Tuvok missing things in the lives of their children. He had missed the birth of a daughter that he wasn’t even aware he had, and now he was missing the marriage of his eldest son. 

Sek was back on Vulcan for the time being, on a sort of medical leave from Starfleet Academy as he went through his first pon farr and married his betrothed, T’Lin. She was a serious young woman, responsible and capable, but quiet – similar to, and a good match for, Sek. 

Watching her eldest go through the marriage ritual while holding her youngest in her arms, T’Pel tried to comfort herself with that thought. _Sek and T’Lin were a good match, the girl would be good for Sek, and they were doing just fine even without Tuvok and Kathryn being physically present in their lives. They_ were _fine._

Still, she missed both Kathryn and her husband desperately.

The feeling came in waves by now. Sometimes she could go days without thinking of either of the people with whom she’d used to share her now-cold bed, and other times the grief overwhelmed her so entirely that she locked herself in her room and – on good days – meditated, or – on bad days – gave in and cried. 

She caught herself thinking pathetically emotion-laden things like “it just wasn’t fair.” 

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t fair that Tuvok didn’t even know about Alessi. It wasn’t fair that she’d had to go through a whole pregnancy without her husband. It wasn’t fair that Tuvok and Kathryn had missed Sek and T’Lin’s marriage ritual, not when Tuvok had been the one to arrange the match in the first place. 

But as the months passed, she caught herself getting numb to the situation, which was, she reasoned, better than getting angry about it, or losing her mind in the more general sense of the term. At least, with time, she wasn’t sad about it as much anymore, certainly not to the point that Mark Johnson had reached, where he gave _Voyager_ ’s crew up for dead so that he could move on with his life guiltlessly. No, T’Pel reached a point where she practically chose to go numb to the “missing them” just so she could get on with the proper, Vulcan life that she needed to live for her children, if for no one else’s sake.

So, when T’Lin stopped by her home one afternoon and informed T’Pel over tea that she was with child, that Tuvok and T’Pel were going to become grandparents, T’Pel mentally added it to the list of things that Tuvok was missing in his own life. She took a sedate sip of her tea and congratulated her daughter-in-law appropriately.

But in the back of her mind, rearing its familiar, ugly head, T’Pel felt the sharp pain of missing her people all over again.

* * *

_ USS Voyager _

_ She wanted Gres here!  _ Samantha thought uselessly, and not at all for the first time that day. It was bad enough that she’d just gone through labor without him, now the ship was in an uproar, and the Doctor was so distracted with triage that she was afraid for her baby. 

_ She couldn’t just lay here and do nothing,  _ she decided, sitting up and ignoring the pain in every part of her body as she got off the biobed and went to stand beside her daughter.

“Ensign,” Kes objected. “You should still be resting.”

Samantha shook her head, rounding the bed to read the screen monitoring her baby. “I have to help her,” she said, drawing on the calm that had gotten her through her time as medic aboard _Karma_ , the calm that generally kept her sane whenever _Voyager_ was under fire like this. This time she took that calm, and she focused it on her daughter.

…To no avail. Kes didn’t object to her being there again, but anything that Samantha suggested, Kes and the other science officer with them had already tried with their rapidly decreasing resources.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... everyone who's watched the series knows it's coming, but there's a character death in this chapter, just in case anyone needs reminding.

_ She wasn’t even a medic, _ Samantha was reminded all over again, _and she’d certainly never been a miracle worker._ She was left to watch her baby helplessly, trying to ignore the panic attempting to crawl its way up her throat in favor of talking softly to the baby as she grew lethargic.

“Hi, Noelle,” she murmured, not realizing that she probably couldn’t even be heard over the chaos going on around them. “I’m your mommy. Your papa and I love you very much, sweetheart. So much.”

But love couldn’t save Noelle, had never been able to save any of Samantha’s children.

By now, Samantha knew the feeling in her gut like the back of her hand, an instinctual, heartrending knowledge that their efforts weren’t going to be enough this time, just like nothing had really been enough to help the past three times she’d lost children.

“Doctor.” As he passed by her, Samantha gave voice to what she’d feared from the first moment the ship had been rocked. “My baby—she’s going to die, isn’t she?”

“Not if I can help it,” he’d informed her.

In the end, he hadn’t been able to help it, and Noelle died right there in front of her eyes. 

Samantha wasn’t sure when she’d started to cry, but she felt herself dying inside as she turned tired, horrified eyes to the Doctor. _So, this was it – one more baby dead, and no hope of ever having a family, not even her husband here with her._

_ She was so tired. Just so, so tired. _

The sound that came out of her was a nearly inhuman whimper as she clutched the edge of the cradle, the sobs she’d held at bay for what felt like hours finally bubbling out. Neelix’s chin dug into her shoulder, offering silent, useless comfort as he held her so that she didn’t crumple to the floor in her grief.

* * *

“Ensign Wildman?”

Samantha’s gaze snapped open at Captain Janeway’s careful voice, and she looked towards her, only slightly embarrassed at the tears that had still been making their way down her cheeks while she once again lay in the bio bed. She’d finally sent Neelix away, just wanting to be alone in her grief, and now the captain was visiting her? _Out of all the people who’d been wounded today, why was Captain Janeway choosing to bother her while she, too, was waiting for the Doctor to release her?_

It wasn’t a kind thought, and Samantha did her best to shove it away as she eased carefully into a seated position. “Yes, captain?”

Captain Janeway’s expression was gentle, and she looked carefully… excited – _surely, she was misinterpreting the look on her face_ – as she approached Samantha’s bed. “You’ve been apprised of our earlier situation by now, I take it?”

Samantha nodded, forcing herself to speak. “I heard when the Doctor was briefed.”

Captain Janeway nodded, revealing slowly, “We have a couple crewmembers from the other _Voyager_ who’ve come aboard our ship, to… replace their deceased counterparts.” It took a second for Samantha to realize what Captain Janeway meant, and the captain must’ve mistaken her shocked silence for confusion, because she added, “Harry Kim came aboard from the other ship – with the living counterpart of your baby.” 

There was another beat of silence, but still Samantha didn’t know what to say; _the baby that she had carried had died before she’d even dared hold her. Noelle was dead. She’d watched the life drain out of her child._

“Would you like to see her?” the captain asked softly.

Samantha was surprised at how close the _“no”_ came to slipping off her tongue. _What if she touched this baby, Noelle’s duplicate – her “replacement” – and it died too? Maybe, with four dead babies, it was better for her to just assume that she wasn’t meant to be a mother._

Then the thought came to her that _Voyager_ and its crew was what had been duplicated. There had been a second Samantha Wildman, and she’d birthed a different daughter… but there had only ever been one Gres. Even if this wasn’t the daughter from her body, this baby was as much Gres’ baby as Noelle had been… and Samantha couldn’t turn her away. This was a piece of Gres, and she didn’t _want_ to turn her away.

She nodded at the captain’s question, worrying at her lip for a second before she said, “Yes, please.”

Captain Janeway went to the door of sickbay, gesturing to someone outside the room, and then Ensign Kim came in, a bundle of blue fabric wrapped in his arms. Samantha could just see the tips of three little horns sticking out over the edge of the blanket, and she was reaching for the baby almost before Ensign Kim was near enough to hand her over.

She looked down at the baby girl, her features so exactly like Noelle’s, but so much more relaxed, then back to Ensign Kim as she said, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

* * *

_ They’d made it, _ she thought to herself that night, studying her daughter’s features in the wan lights of sickbay at night. Samantha was finally holding hers and Gres’ baby in her arms. In that moment, all of it was worth it.

Except… there was a pall of “not really” hanging over her every thought. Her baby hadn’t really made it, and this was not really her baby at all. This was Noelle’s duplicate – her “replacement,” Captain Janeway had said – except Samantha couldn’t really bring herself to think that way.

Noelle had been one thing, one child, and she had died.

_ This baby was a twisted sort of twin to Noelle… carried by a surrogate mother… and now left for Samantha to take care of. _

That was a story, a way to make sense of this _disaster_ of a day, that Samantha could swallow with her sanity intact. She could allow herself to grieve for Noelle that way. And it would explain why she didn’t connect as immediately to this baby as she had to the child who’d died just across the room earlier today.

It didn’t seem right after all of her attempts at carrying a pregnancy to term that the baby in her arms was, essentially, one she was adopting. But this was still Gres’ baby, and hers in a strange way, and she knew she could learn to love her. _She knew she could, and she knew she would. How could she not when just looking down at the infant in her arms brought a – small, still slightly-troubled – smile to her face?_

_ She couldn’t forever go on as “the infant,” though; she needed a name.  _ Samantha considered and discarded a few before settling on one she liked, and she ran a fingertip up one side of her daughter’s forehead and down the other around the tiny spikes as she watched her eyelids flutter in her sleep. “Sweet dreams, Naomi,” she bid the baby.


	10. Chapter 10

“Samantha?”

Samantha had noticed Kes’ silent approach out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t feel the need to speak until spoken to, meeting the Ocampan’s caring gaze. “Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

There was a well-concealed thread of concern in Kes’ voice, but Samantha still heard it as she replied, “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” She smiled softly at Naomi, answering her own question. “I have my baby.”

Kes hesitated, but she didn’t leave, and Samantha let her smile freeze on her face as she watched Naomi, waiting for Kes to inevitably continue. “It’s just…” Kes continued after a beat. “Forgive me, but… your smile is rather strange; you’re here and you’re happy, but you’re also not, I think, and, if I heard you correctly earlier today, you were calling your baby ‘Noelle.’ Now she’s ‘Naomi?’”

_ There it was. Leave it to Kes to figure her out in just a couple sentences, while still giving her plenty of space to deflect if she wanted to.  _ And Samantha really, really wanted to deflect. She came extraordinarily close to informing Kes that once upon a time, in a time of less equality on human planets, women of her species had been renown for changing their minds about things. But she hadn’t been one to use those sorts of explanations before, and she wasn’t going to start now. Besides, Kes had been the friendliest, most sympathetic person on this ship towards Samantha – the closest thing she had to a real friend aboard, actually – and it seemed like bad sportsmanship to evade her now.

_ So, painful honesty it was. _

“This baby is Naomi,” Samantha agreed quietly, running her finger around Naomi’s spikes again. “And you’re right. Her…her sister—” the wording felt _right_ , even though it only made the grief-fueled knots in Samantha’s stomach worse. “—Was Noelle.”

“I see,” Kes said simply, her eyes, if not her tone, betraying that she did understand what Samantha had just admitted – that she felt the loss of Noelle as a separate thing from her joy over Naomi’s presence. Kes put an arm around Samantha’s shoulders, leaning into her as she looked at Naomi too, a smile finding its way onto her face. “Well, welcome to _Voyager_ , Naomi Wildman. We’re all very glad you’re here.”

Samantha chuckled, though it came out as much like a sigh as anything, as she leaned into Kes in return. “Yes, we are.”

There was a beat of silence between them, and Samantha knew that – like Neelix had been earlier as Noelle slipped away – this was Kes’ way of very literally just being there for her, so she wasn’t alone with her emotions.

_ How often she had felt alone since  _ Voyager _had left port!_

_ But not anymore,  _ she reminded herself, refocusing on Naomi. _Never again._

“You know,” Kes said after another moment. “That I’ll listen if you ever need to talk. About anything.”

“I do know,” Samantha smiled kindly at her, already knowing it was highly unlikely that she would ever take her up on the offer. “Thank you.”

“But—” and that was where Kes surprised her. “We both know I’m young and inexperienced in a great many things still – and parenting and marriage, to name a couple of things, are high on that list – so, if I may make a suggestion?” 

Samantha let her curiosity win out as just barely nodded a go-ahead.

“Commander Chakotay has been doing some studies since we were stranded. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but he’s become something of a stand-in ship’s counselor. It might help you to talk to him if—if things ever… weigh _too_ heavily on you.”

_ Absolutely not.  _ But her first instinct wasn’t one that Kes needed to hear, because behind it was an explanation that Samantha wasn’t willing to give, and, besides, Kes was only trying to be kind. Instead, she answered vaguely, “Thank you, but… something tells me the commander and I wouldn’t really get along.”

Kes gave her a strange look but went along with that line of thought. “Maybe, maybe not, but I think he’d be willing to put his personal biases aside if a member of the crew needed his help.”

Samantha smiled thinly, nodding at Kes in agreement just to put an end to the conversation as she said, “Then I’ll keep that in mind.”

* * *

Three days later, Samantha was feeling brave enough to leave her quarters with Naomi for the first time. She wanted some non-replicated food, and she was hoping that Neelix had something palatable on the menu today. So, into the halls she’d trekked with her hair fixed for the first time in four days, presentably dressed, with Naomi nestled happily in her arms.

So far, no less than a dozen crewmembers – some of which she’d barely talked to before today – had stopped her to comment on, and coo at, her daughter. Though Samantha had always been confident in her ability to handle whatever life threw at her, that wasn’t the same confidence it took to enjoy being the center of attention, and she had the former while she’d never had the latter. She felt like all eyes were on her even just walking down the halls, and it was starting to set her teeth on edge.

She was grateful to slip into the turbolift for a moment alone to catch her breath – but at the last second someone slipped in with her. She kept her head down, fussing uselessly with the edges of Naomi’s blanket as Commander Chakotay – _of all people!_ – gave mother and daughter a once over with a wide grin. 

One glance at him out of the corner of her eye told Samantha that he’d joined her in the turbolift for a reason, and something in his eyes told her it wasn’t just to get from point A to point B.

Her suspicions were confirmed when Commander Chakotay said calmly, “Computer, halt turbolift.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Samantha was saying, “Computer, belay that order.”

“Computer,” he turned to face her, his gaze practically daring her to try and ignore her superior officer’s wishes again as he repeated, “Halt turbolift.”

Samantha knew when to cede that she’d lost that particular argument almost before it’d even begun. She bit back a sigh, asking with a calmness that she, maybe irrationally, didn’t actually feel, “Can I help you, commander?”


	11. Chapter 11

“I heard a rumor,” Commander Chakotay informed Samantha evenly, a smile on his face even if his eyes sparked with confusion. “That you and I don’t get along. Can you explain that to me?”

Samantha swallowed, asking shortly, “Kes?”

“She’s worried about you.” 

_ Dammit! _

“And so is Neelix. They seem to think you need grief counseling.”

“Why?” She still couldn’t quite bring herself to look him in the eye, and that wasn’t like the Samantha that he knew from years before. “I have my baby now. You know – or suspect – enough to know that’s a big deal for me.”

“You have Naomi, but she’s not the baby you carried, and, frankly, you don’t have Gres to—”

“Don’t!” She snapped at him, her mouth getting ahead of her mind, and they both froze.

_ But, really, didn’t he think that she  _ knew _that her husband was a lifetime of travel away?!_

Commander Chakotay blinked at her a couple of times before stating, “You _need_ to talk to someone about this.”

She shook her head stubbornly, even as she turned her gaze downward again towards Naomi.

“Computer, resume turbolift.” There was a beat of strained silence as the turbolift blessedly started to move and then, “You don’t want to talk to me, fine. You have tomorrow off as well?”

She nodded.

“Be at my office 0900 hours. That’s an order, ensign.”

* * *

The next morning, Samantha sat back from Lieutenant Torres’ koona as the computer declared the time. She looked at Commander Chakotay in surprise, saying, “I just spent an hour talking to an animal – who talked back.”

He smiled at her, as she was apparently being a little slow to come around to the idea. But, really, _talking animals_? “Yes, you did. Do you feel any more settled? Any,” he shrugged. “Better?”

She paused, considering the knots that had loosened in her stomach, as well as the ones that had loosened between her shoulder blades. “Yes, I think I do.”

“Good. Then, if you continue to… resist the idea of talking with me, I would suggest you gather the items for a medicine bundle of your own so that you can continue to talk to your spirit animal.”

“I may just do that,” Samantha agreed, picturing in her mind the mouthy, protective swan with whom she’d been talking.

_ Swans: they were monogamous for as long as both the male and female were alive, both parents took part in incubating the eggs, and they were notoriously protective of their offspring. _

It was an interesting thought to consider, but Samantha tucked it away for further consideration later as she turned to Lieutenant Torres and said lightly, “Thank you for letting me use your bundle this time.”

“Of course,” Lieutenant Torres said, adding with a thread of hurt buried in her tone, “Thanks for not ignoring me when I walked in the door this time.”

They had been friends, once upon a time, Samantha understood her to be saying, and neither Lieutenant Torres nor Commander Chakotay understood why she had avoided them on _Voyager._ Samantha sighed, let her gaze wonder back down to her hands when she wasn’t sure which one of the people in front of her she should look at. “I… got nervous, when I saw the way Lieutenant Paris was treated by the… the _former_ Maquis, so I decided avoidance was a better tactic than making myself known and potentially putting myself in the same situation.”

“I thought it might be something like that,” Commander Chakotay replied, which made Samantha feel mildly better about what she now felt, listening to it come out of her own mouth, was a flimsy excuse. “But there are a couple of key differences between you and Paris.

“Yeah,” Lieutenant Torres seconded. “We’ve liked you alright from the moment we met you, for one thing. Him, not so much?”

“And how do you feel about him now?” Samantha asked with a twinkle in her eye, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.

Commander Chakotay wasn’t having it as he reminded her, “We’re talking about you right now, Sam.”

“Samantha, please,” she said. “Or Ensign Wildman.”

She’d confused them with the request, and Commander Chakotay questioned, “Can I ask why? What the difference is?”

She bit back another sigh, trying to explain, “As a child, in my stepfather’s house, and even on _Karma_ , I was ‘Sam.’ Afterward, once I…” her eyebrows drew together as she continued her flawed explanation. “Put all the roughness of my past behind me, I started introducing myself as ‘Samantha.’ It… helps my own mindset about myself, I think, as a way to remind myself I don’t have to be who I once was.”

The commander nodded his acceptance, and Torres did the same, even though she was rather clearly following the lead of her superior. “Another thing, Samantha, that helps your case,” he continued where Torres had left off, “Is that you never… gave away Maquis information, like Paris did. That sort of betrayal makes any relationship a… struggle, to begin with, I think.”

Samantha sat up a little straighter, asking nervously, “Did you… see my mission parameters, then? The reason I was assigned to this mission in the first place?”

Commander Chakotay smiled carefully at her. “Yes. We know you were assigned by Starfleet to be the ‘advisor’ on how to take us,” he gestured between himself and Torres. “In painlessly. However, according to the captain, in the chaos that our meeting became, she never actually called on you for information, and she had brought in Paris herself, anyway.” He sat forward on his couch, elbows resting on his knees as he leveled her with the same kind gaze that had drawn her onto the _Karma_ in the first place. “What I am trying to tell you is that I am willing to let bygones be bygones if you are. We’re all Starfleet now, right? We’ve worked hard to become that, so let’s… not let our pasts define how we move forward in the future.”

Samantha offered him another smile, this one a little braver than the previous one. “I like the sound of that.”

“Good.” He arched his eyebrows, asking, “So, we’re friends again?” She nodded, and he stood to his feet, leading Samantha and Torres to do the same as he repeated, “Good. Now, I’m afraid, if you don’t mind, not all of us have the rest of the week off to spend with _Voyager_ ’s most adorable crewmember; I’m due on the bridge in twenty minutes.”

“Thank you again, commander,” Samantha said with a smile before she walked out the door with Torres.

“For whatever it’s worth,” Torres said, her medicine bundle swinging against her leg as they walked together. “I’m glad we’re on solidly good terms again.”

Samantha was surprised by how much she meant it as she said kindly, “Me too.”


	12. Chapter 12

“Neelix?” Samantha called, walking into the mess hall after she’d parted ways with Lieutenant Torres. “Kes?”

“We’re here!” Neelix called as Samantha caught sight of him standing behind the counter with Kes.

Naomi was literally in Kes’ capable hands, staring up with the bleary-eyed fascination of a newborn at a bright yellow root vegetable that Neelix was holding out for her observation while he jabbered away at her.

Samantha smiled adoringly at the trio. It was true that she missed Gres every minute of every day – especially these days – but it was also true that there were times aboard _Voyager_ that made it feel like this was, in its own way, becoming home, too, and this morning was shaping up to be one of those times.

“How was she?” Samantha asked, shamelessly sweeping her daughter out of Kes’ gentle hands and kissing her on the forehead. Despite the fact that it was their first time apart, she hadn’t expected to miss her daughter after only an hour and a half’s separation, but here they were.

“She was perfect,” Kes promised sweetly.

“We’ll watch her any time you’d like,” Neelix announced. “Really, any time at all.”

“Thank you,” Samantha replied, sweeping up the small sack of things she’d left with Neelix and Kes for Naomi. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Neelix nodded firmly, going back to whatever stew he was making as he began to whistle jovially. Kes glanced adoringly at him before she walked Samantha to the door of the mess hall. It wasn’t necessary, but Samantha was glad the Ocampan had followed her; it gave her a chance to let Kes know what she’d done.

“Thank you, Kes,” Samantha said once they were out of Neelix’s hearing range. She settled Naomi in the crook of one arm, took Kes’ hand in her free hand. Kes’ gaze flashed with surprise as Samantha explained, “You guys didn’t know it, but the meeting I had to go to was with Commander Chakotay. He… well, he ordered me to attend a counseling session, so that’s where I was. Attending a counseling session with Commander Chakotay and Lieutenant Torres.” _Whose presence there she didn’t feel obligated to explain._

But Kes didn’t ask, either. “Oh,” Kes said simply, and the poor Ocampan looked increasingly nervous, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I wanted to be angry with you,” Samantha said honestly. “And last night I was angry with you. I felt… as if you’d betrayed my confidence, gone behind my back, but… you have good instincts, Kes; you knew what I needed before I was willing to admit what I needed. Commander Chakotay gave me some… tactics, tools, to use to help myself. We talked,” she thought of Lieutenant Torres, too, and the conversation the three had about their past together, the way it felt like the start of patching up old friendships. “And it helped more than you can know.”

_ Mostly Kes “couldn’t” know because Samantha continued to go out of her way to ensure that no one aboard  _ Voyager _knew of her Maquis past, but it was the spirit of the statement that mattered._

Samantha smiled encouragingly at Kes, adding in case it needed to be clarified, “So, I’m not angry with you anymore.”

Kes grinned, seemingly commenting on the whole of what Samantha had told her as she said only, “Good.”

Thinking back on the morning, holding her baby in her arms, Samantha had to agree to herself that maybe it was “good.” She was part of a good crew, and she could have good friends here, if she’d let herself. Being without Gres notwithstanding, she could have a good _life_ here, if she’d let herself.

* * *

_ Vulcan, 2373 _

“Gres, what a pleasant surprise,” T’Pel said upon opening her front door. To Gres’ eyes, though, she looked as startled as she was pleased. Still, she stepped to the side and gestured for him to enter her home, so that was encouraging. “It’s been some time since we last saw you.”

Gres came in with a single stuffed duffle bag swinging from his hand as he apologized, “I know, sorry, I…” he dropped his bag onto the entryway floor with a dull _thump_ , surprised at the tiredness that hit him like a solid wave now that he was here, in a place that felt homey where he knew he could relax. 

“Gres?” T’Pel asked worriedly, stepping closer and trying to get a better look at his face.

He heard Solik and Asil come in, heard baby Alessi gurgling in the arms of one sibling or the other, but he was looking at the floor as he explained haltingly, “DS9 is kind of a mess right now. Has been for a while.”

“We know. We – I – was concerned for you, my friend. Did you not get my letters? Messages asking you if you were alright? You even stopped coming to Starfleet headquarters with me.”

Gres winced. “I know, believe me, I know. I was… busy. Someone told someone who told someone else about my background in… fighting the Cardassians, and I was… recruited to assist the Federation. They apparently thought that being Ktarian would give me a unique angle to use to learn things about the Cardassians, and,” he ran his hands down his face, finishing, “Suffice to say that I was put in a position to have to… play the part of someone else for a while. That’s why I couldn’t risk replying to you or going to Starfleet headquarters. I’m sorry. Until I got on the shuttle for Vulcan, I thought someone at Starfleet had kept you apprised.”

T’Pel shook her head, swallowing an aggravated sigh. “No, no one tells me anything out here.” She must’ve seen his guilty expression, because she added, “And we both know its Starfleet’s fault, not ours. Certainly not yours.”

Solik interrupted that line of conversation to ask Gres, “Are you saying you went undercover with the Cardassians?”

Gres licked his lips – _he’d forgotten how quickly he got thirsty on Vulcan_ – before replying, “I am very specifically _not_ saying that, actually, and I can’t really say anything more.”

“That’s alright,” T’Pel promised, giving her two children warning looks as she led Gres from the entryway into the sitting room. “Sit, you look exhausted.”

He didn’t bother to object, just folded himself onto the settee and drew in a deep breath. T’Pel dispatched Solik to put Gres’ bag in the guest room, and Asil to get a glass of water. Once they were alone, she sat forward across from him, asking, “Are you in some sort of trouble? Is that why you’re here?”

“No,” Gres assured her. “Gods, no, I would never tempt something like that to come to your door. I’m here because I was ordered to take a break – let’s call it ‘shore leave.’” He snorted. “Funny thing is, that’s when I realized I don’t really have anywhere to go. In the past few years, I have made a home aboard a starship that exploded, then I lived in San Francisco so Sam could attend the academy, but our quarters there have long become someone else’s, then I moved to Deep Space 9, but I’ve been ordered away for a bit.”

“You’re listing places,” T’Pel observed. “But I think what you mean – and what you’re “ _not_ saying” again – is that you don’t have _people_ to return to.”

“That is correct,” Gres admitted, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I’ve made friends on Deep Space 9, but that’s it.”

“What about your family?” T’Pel asked.

He shook his head. “They weren’t thrilled when I went to fight with the Maquis, but they absolutely disowned me when they found out about Sam.” He shrugged. “She never even knew that. I just blamed their absence from my life on the Maquis, and it was close enough to the truth that she took me at my word.”

T’Pel’s expression softened so much that it made Gres’ stomach clench and loosen in sickeningly rapid succession; he was tired and nauseous, and genuinely just wanted to _sleep_. “So, you came here,” T’Pel summarized gently.

“I can be gone tomorrow morning,” Gres promised. “I don’t want to im—”

“You will stay here for as long as you need,” T’Pel decreed. “You are my friend, and my ally, and you will always be welcome in my home.”

“Thank you,” Gres said to both mother and daughter as Asil came back in and handed him a glass of water.

“Of course,” T’Pel replied. Her eyes held a spark of very human excitement as she informed him, “If you stay long enough, you might even get to meet my grandchild.”

In the face of her mildly displayed excitement, Gres smiled, admitting, “I would like that.”


	13. Chapter 13

Maybe it was a strange thing to do, and Gres had no logical reason for it, but he stayed with T’Pel on Vulcan until T’Lin had her baby. 

He went once with T’Pel to Starfleet headquarters exclusively to make noise about _Voyager_ , a trip that occupied the time between the full day of rest that T’Pel demanded of Gres upon his arrival and the birth of Sek’s daughter.

Sek had been granted a week’s leave from Starfleet Academy so that he could be with his wife for the birth, so Gres got to see him while he was on Vulcan. Sek wasn’t overly fond of him, thought, and he barely knew T’Lin, so when the day of the birth came, Gres volunteered to babysit Alesi alone at T’Pel’s house while the rest of the family went to Sek and T’Lin’s residence.

_ Babies,  _ he decided that afternoon as he rocked Alesi to sleep, _were good for the soul._

_ Maybe,  _ he considered, _that was why he had stayed, to see a new life, fresh and untainted by the universe that he was becoming increasingly tired of._

“What do you think, Alessi?” he murmured. The baby girl stretched one arm upward and out of the shoddy job Gres had done of swaddling her in a blanket, then began to snore quietly.

Gres chuckled, pushing his foot against the floor to keep rocking slowly.

* * *

“You’re coming with us this time,” T’Pel announced three days later, handing Gres a Vulcan overcoat that he strongly suspected was her husband’s.

Gres wasn’t sure when T’Pel had gotten anywhere near this comfortable bossing him around, but she’d shown on his visit to Vulcan this time that she _was_ comfortable with it. Maybe because even he knew that when he’d shown up on her stoop, he’d obviously needed someone to make him take care of himself for a few days. To be fair, she’d done a good job of it.

And now when he was being ordered to go see T’Lin and little T’Meni? No goodhearted man was going to turn that down, right?

When he got there with T’Pel and Alessi, though, he realized why she’d asked him along, and not either of her grown children. Sek had headed back to San Francisco earlier in the day, and T’Pel wanted someone she could trust both with the babies and to not eavesdrop on the conversation she wanted to have with T’Lin about the months of single-parenthood that now faced her. But it was a small house, and if Gres happened to overhear some of what was being said while he rocked Alessi in his arms and T’Meni in her cradle using his foot, then was it really his fault?

Truth be told, as T’Pel outlined the difficulties and the rewards of what T’Lin would face, there was a solid half of it Gres wished he hadn’t heard as his thoughts drifted back to Sam, back to the same old questions he had, and had no way of answering. _Had she miscarried again, gods forbid? Had she had the baby? And now, if so, how difficult was_ she _finding it to be a single parent?_

_ He’d had enough of relaxing and of babies,  _ Gres decided then and there. _He wasn’t like T’Pel; he didn’t have a civilian family that needed him around, and the family he did have had to be terribly far away. But right now? Right now, there were too many wars that needed fought, and battles that needed won. Someone needed to make Starfleet kept doing their job, kept searching for_ Voyager _, but the truth was that, at this point, he trusted T’Pel to fight that fight alone when she needed to._

_ Right now, he was needed back on Deep Space 9. _

So, the next morning, Gres was on his way back to the space station, determined to do what good he could.

* * *

_ Vulcan, 2374: _

_ It was good to be home,  _ Assan admitted to himself. _…At least, it was good for the most part_ , he amended, noting the way villagers were watching him and Sek as they made their way down the main road. He chose to believe they were being watched because of the Starfleet uniforms they now sported, the yellow turtleneck of security officers underneath their black and gray jackets. _A little flair of unnecessary dramatics to add to their surprising their mother with their arrival back home._

She had seen her sons last at their graduation and pinning ceremony in San Francisco, and she likely wasn’t expecting them home so quickly. The idea of her glad surprise brought Assan joy that he carefully kept off his face as he walked with Sek, who was possibly in more of a hurry to get home than Assan was. 

Not that Assan could blame him. Sek had an infant daughter waiting for him in his own home, and a wife with whom he’d barely spent any time. In fact, Sek was going to be remaining home for a whole year according to a Vulcan cultural rite, a period of time during which newlywed Vulcans were meant to get to know one another – a period that Sek and T’Lin had agreed to put off while Sek finished his academy training.

Assan, on the other hand, already had his first assignment, and he only had two days to spend with his family before he would have to turn back around and return to San Francisco, but they were a two days he intended to thoroughly enjoy.

* * *

T’Pel had no problem whatsoever with admitting that the pervading belief that Vulcans didn’t lie was, in and of itself, an absolute lie.

Starfleet had finally come through with _something_ about _Voyager_ , and, to be fair, when they found something, they found something big. Now, they knew, relatively, where _Voyager_ was – terribly far away though it was – and _now_ T’Pel was faced with writing letters to her faraway Starfleet officers. 

Tuvok’s letter contained the absolute truth of what the past four years had been for T’Pel and their family – the good, the bad, and the ugly of it, as she’d heard Kathryn say before. Because _Tuvok_ did not worry.

Kathryn worried. Kathryn didn’t always show it, but she worried. 

T’Pel knew Kathryn, knew that she would already be racked with guilt and worries about the people aboard her ship. There was no point in adding to her worries with what civilian families were going through. So, for Kathryn, T’Pel wrote _mostly_ the truth, she just left a few things out.

She didn’t mention the strain the distance put on her and Tuvok’s telepathic bond, and she didn’t mention Alessi to Kathryn, because she knew very well the girl’s existence without a father would just add to the captain’s guilt. And to… _hopefully_ help her worry a little less, T’Pel told the truth of all that had happened in Sek’s life but painted a more… childish version of what the other three had been through. She didn’t say a word about Assan and Asil’s broken engagements, nor did she mention the weight of the family that not even she had been able to fully alleviate from Solik’s shoulders while his brothers were at Starfleet Academy. In fact, she didn’t even mention that Assan had attended Starfleet Academy at all; the idea made Kathryn as nervous as it made her proud, and T’Pel decided to leave it out, despite the fact that Assan had just returned to Vulcan after his first assignment without a scratch. Instead, she just mentioned that “the twins” were considering attending Starfleet Academy, which was half true; Solik had begun considering attending Starfleet Academy himself once Sek had returned, and his brother’s presence at home would allow Solik to do so if he wanted.

All in all, it was a sweet letter that she hoped would give Kathryn a moment of joy, and when Solik and Assan insisted upon reading it before she sent it, she thought it was a nice touch to add their names to it as well.

As T’Pel went back and edited Tuvok’s letter, making sure he understood what she had and hadn’t told Kathryn, she soothed the guilty pricks to her conscience by reminding herself that she was just doing what very little she could to make Kathryn’s life easier. 


	14. Chapter 14

_USS Voyager_

Tuvok couldn’t blame the humans, precisely, for how many letters from home had come with divorce papers attached, and the number had been startlingly high. Seventy years was their lifetime – or more, for some – so, in a way, he could understand it. Privately, though, for reasons that he wasn’t willing to examine, he thought Mark Johnson was a disappointing… well, Lieutenant Torres’ term, “pig,” came to mind, along with a few other things.

The weight of all the separations warred with the excitement of people who’d received good news from home, and now Tuvok was left facing his own dilemma of what to write in response to T’Pel’s letter.

_How to tell her that his relationship with Captain Janeway – with Kathryn – had dissolved into thin air while they hadn’t been looking?_

* * *

Samantha kept an eye on Neelix and Naomi out of the corner of her eye, half-listening to Naomi excitedly dictate a letter that Neelix was obligingly jotting down. She had already reached the maturity of a human five-year-old with all the uninhibited curiosity that came with it, and the one-sided conversation flowed easily from Naomi.

As she stared down at her PADD, Samantha wished the words would come that easily to her.

She’d already filled Gres in on ship news that he might find relevant, on the book that she’d begun writing on Delta Quadrant alien species, on the department that she ran aboard the ship, on her renewed friendships with Lieutenant Torres and Commander Chakotay, and on new friendships she’d made with Neelix, the now-deceased Kes, and more. She’d waxed poetic and reminded him how much she loved and missed him, how much he still meant to her, and how much his loyalty to her warmed her heart.

She had danced _utter_ _circles_ around the obvious news that she had to tell him… and somehow the words that mattered the most just wouldn’t come.

“Can I sit?”

Samantha looked up at the question to find Commander Chakotay standing beside her table. “I wish you would,” she answered honestly, growing exasperated with herself.

He was already studying her as he sat down across from her. Setting down the PADD he’d brought with him, he said, “I was hoping to work on a letter for my cousin, but I think you have a bigger issue at hand, don’t you?”

She shook her head. “No, not really, you’re free to work on your letter, commander.”

Commander Chakotay folded his hands, fixed her with a kind gaze, and waited. _He’d sat down here with absolutely no intention of working on his own letter home._

She caved to what he wanted, admitting, “I feel like this shouldn’t be as big a deal as I feel it is, and I can’t…” she waved her hand, trying to wave away the tangles in her thoughts. “I just can’t find the words to tell him…” she glanced towards Naomi, then sighed, adding, “And it’s going to be pretty hard to send a letter from a daughter he doesn’t know he has if I can’t admit that he has her.”

“Wildman, this _is_ a _huge_ deal for you two.” He hesitated before reminding her carefully, “I think you forget I was there for one of the low points of your journey to parenthood.”

 _In the escape pod, as_ Karma _became ash beneath them and she began to miscarry Nathan._

And maybe that was part of why she couldn’t find the words to say now. If she’d had to tell him that she’d miscarried again… it would’ve hurt, no doubt, but she knew how to have that conversation with him by now.

She had absolutely no idea how to tell him that he was going to miss the childhood of their desperately wanted daughter. Something that should’ve elated Gres was going to half-kill him. …And she had to be the one to stab him through the heart.

She put her head in her hands and commanded herself not to cry with frustration and the sheer grief of missing her husband. It was a testament to how much this letter was frazzling that she only remembered then, her hands flying away from her face as she exclaimed in horror: “And I have to tell him about Noelle!”

“Samantha?” The commander said gently. “Hey. Okay. Let’s try this: where does the girls’ story start?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she admitted, taking a breath, and trying to calm herself before her upset became noticeable.

“If you were telling the story of the girls’ lives, where would you start?”

“With… Noelle. With the fact that the blood merger the Doctor performed worked.”

“Okay. Write that, then. Then tell him what came next. And then the step after that. He’s your husband, Wildman – he’s _Gres_ – and he’s going to want to know what your life has been like the past four years. So, just tell him.”

The commander made it sound so simple, yet his suggestion helped a little, helped her stay calm if nothing else. “Okay.” She nodded, returning her gaze resolutely to her PADD. “I think I might be able to do that.”

Commander Chakotay smiled confidently at her. “Sure, you can.”

* * *

_San Francisco, California, Earth_

The Dominion presence on Deep Space 9 had finally withdrawn behind the Cardassian border, _and_ Gres had received word that Starfleet headquarters not only had news of _Voyager_ , but letters from their loved ones! _Maybe life really was starting to change for the better,_ Gres considered, looking out over the green surrounding Starfleet headquarters.

“T’Pel. Hey, T’Pel!” Gres smiled broadly as he saw T’Pel walking towards the benches where they had first met, three years ago now. He waved at her with the hand that held two PADDs, and she smiled softly back at him, pausing to wait for him to catch up with her.

“You have two letters?” she asked curiously as they sat down together. “Even I only have one.”

She looked troubled by that in a way that Gres wasn’t sure he wanted to ask about, so he pointed out instead, “Yeah, but how many people does poor Tuvok have to write? Sam I only have each other. If she wants to write more than what one PADD can take, I won’t be upset about it.”

“Perhaps not,” T’Pel agreed, barely biting back a grin.

“Have you read it yet?” Gres asked, gesturing to her letter as he found he was unable to stop smiling himself. T’Pel shook her head, and he admitted, “Me neither.”

“Together, then. You read yours, and I’ll read mine, and if we want to tell each other what they say, we can.”

Gres nodded, practically vibrating with excitement and nerves both as they tapped their PADDs so that the screens blinked to life. T’Pel’s eyes caught on the yellow banner of text across the top of Gres’ PADD, and she grinned.

“READ SECOND” the PADD commanded.

“She really did fill a whole PADD, didn’t she?” Gres shrugged and began to read despite the instructions. He got as far as “Dear” before T’Pel took the PADD from him, putting his first one in his hands instead. “What are you doing, rebel?” she asked lightly. _She was so giddy that she was teasing him!_ “Your wife asks one thing of you. Do it.”

Gres laughed, nodded obediently as he started to read the PADD that started with the banner, “READ FIRST.”


	15. Chapter 15

_ My dearest Gres, _

_ I’ve rewritten this letter – or at least this part of this letter – a handful of times, the most recently with Commander Chakotay sitting across from me in  _ Voyager _’s mess hall. I want to start with what I’m sure you’ve wondered about the most, so here’s your answer: it worked, Gres. We have a living daughter._

_ And here’s how… _

_ As you already knew would be necessary, the fifth week of my pregnancy, I went to sickbay, and the Emergency Medical Hologram – our primary doctor since we were stranded out here – performed the blood merger. Two months later, once this pregnancy had progressed further than any of our others had, I began to wonder if maybe I could let myself breathe again. _

Gres read all the way through Samantha’s letter before realizing that he was crying silently, had been blinking away tears through most of his reading. Then he picked up the second PADD, beginning to read.

_ Dear Papa, _

_ Hi! My name’s Naomi, and I’m two, but Mommy and Neelix say that I act much bigger. The Doctor says that I act bigger than my age because of you, and Mommy says that I have her eyes and hair like your Mommy’s. Is that true? _

Gres made it no further before a real sob bubbled up from his throat, the product of so many emotions that he didn’t know how to begin to sort them out. “I have a daughter, T’Pel,” he managed, drawing in a calming breath as he turned to look at her, noticing the stricken look in her eyes, in her otherwise flat expression, for the first time. “What—what about you?”

“I…” T’Pel blinked rapidly, trying to comprehend as she reread her letter from Tuvok. “It would appear that I have, essentially, lost someone very dear to me.”

* * *

Assan had accompanied his mother when she’d come to San Francisco in person two days ago to receive her family’s letters from his father, as he’d been assigned to leave the city for another mission aboard the ship he’d been assigned to after graduation. The day of his scheduled departure, though, he awoke feeling ill in a way that had nothing to do with the aches and pains that came from sleeping on his standard-issue mattress.

Though he’d never been through it before, Vulcan intuition told Assan exactly what this was, whether or not he wanted to contend with it. Before the time had arrived for him to board his ship, he had already obtained permission from his superior to take a shuttle and rejoin his crew a week from now, and that solved exactly one of the many problems suddenly staring him directly in the face. 

He stepped into his guest quarters at headquarters, incredibly grateful that he was no longer sharing a dorm room with others at the academy, and immediately started a video call with his mother.

She knew, somehow, as soon as they saw one another’s faces, what he was going through.

“How could you know already?” he asked. “I only began to notice the signs this morning.”

T’Pel’s eyes were troubled as she told him, “There’s a reason multiple births are rare on Vulcan. Sek and T’Lin are on their way to fetch Solik’s betrothed as we speak.”

“Solik is going through this, too,” Assan put together what she meant as he clenched his fists together in his lap.

She nodded before admitting quietly, “Though it will be an easier, much more straightforward process for your brother.”

“He still has his betrothed,” Assan nodded impatiently, trying to hurry her past what they both already knew. “Mother, that’s why I contacted you. I—I know you tried to find me another mate, but I need to know if you had any success.”

His half-Vulcan mother looked to be on the verge of tears, and that was the last thing he wanted or needed right now, but it did give him an answer even before she said, “No, I did not. After… everything, everyone in our village knowing what they do about us, no one wished—”

_ The last thing he wanted was for her mother’s pain to worsen here,  _ yet he saw it happening on the other side of the screen anyway, so he held up a hand before she could get too far down that road. “I understand. I’ll just have to get through it with meditation.”

Already he dreaded the idea.

“Assan,” she began hesitantly. “I don’t think… You know yourself my son, you know that you haven’t meditated nearly enough since _Voyager_ ’s disappearance – without your father’s example – and that’s my fault, I know, but… do you really think meditation is what will save you now?”

“Do I have a choice but to try?!” he asked, hating the way he snapped at his mother even as the words came out of his mouth.

“What of the medical staff there? Is there any chance that they might have developed some new treatment that might—”

Assan was already shaking his head. “I will not shame myself, my family, or my _people_ by discussing this with a doctor as if they can help. We both know they can’t.”

“Then what are your chances of finding a mate where you are?”

It was a terrifically blunt question, and as politely as she could, she was still inferring that she didn’t think meditation would help him through his first _pon farr_ , but he had no helpful answer to her question. “A Vulcan mate, here? Extraordinary low to none. All of the Vulcans I know here are either already married or at least betrothed.”

T’Pel looked at him for a moment, though it seemed to Assan’s fraying nerves to last forever before she seemed to come to a decision as she advised, “Come home, my son. If nothing else, you will be on Vulcan, and that might soothe your pain somewhat.”

“Meditation isn’t effected by location and being on Vulcan won’t help if the meditation won’t work.”

Assan could feel his thoughts creeping towards an idea, but he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it even as his mother asked suspiciously, “You have another idea?”

“I think I might. I need to get in contact with someone else, Mother. I’ll contact you again if it’s necessary. And, if I miss Solik and Farun’s wedding, give them my congratulations.”

He hung up on his mother before she could object. Seized by a fleeting inspiration, spurred on by a sudden, overwhelming desire for his father’s steady presence, and acting in what was perhaps a moment of insanity, he called Gres Wildman.


	16. Chapter 16

In a way, it made sense. If Assan knew there was no one here who would mate with him, and, logically, scouring Vulcan for a willing partner would take too long, then he had to see what… potential lie elsewhere. Perhaps Deep Space 9 would be a good place to start.

“Assan,” Gres was clearly surprised, but not displeased to see him when he answered Assan’s hail. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon after seeing you on Earth. How are you?”

“Fine. Actually, I am increasingly unwell, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t question that statement further. Are there Vulcans on Deep Space 9?”

“Yes, there are,” Gres replied, his tone still curious, even though he didn’t miss a beat.

“And are you on Deep Space 9?”

“Still on my way back right now; it takes multiple days to get from Earth to the station or vice versa.”

Inwardly, Assan groaned; he had forgotten that minor detail in his haste to see if his wild idea would work. _He could still make it work_ , he decided. “Are you alone?” he asked grudgingly.

“Now?” Gres glanced around. “I’m sitting on a bench behind the pilot’s seat, and there are other shuttle passengers here.”

“Can you possibly find a way to… be alone? I don’t want everyone hearing some of the questions I need to ask you.”

Gres gave him a quizzical look, but held up his pointer finger, wordlessly asking Assan to wait a moment as he pulled a black, bean-shaped thing out of his pocket. Tapping the device, he inserted it into his ear, then altered something on the screen Assan was watching him through.

“There,” Gres said once he was done. “Now I’m the only one who can hear you. I promise. Is there something I can do to help? Is everything okay?”

“Everyone else is fine,” Assan promised. “In fact, back on Vulcan, Solik is preparing for his marriage.”

“But that’s great, right?” Gres asked, a smile tilting the edges of his mouth upward.

“For him, yes, because he still has his betrothed. I, on the other hand—” Assan cut himself short, then tried again. “I need to know if you know – by some random chance I suppose – if there are… unmated, non-betrothed Vulcans on Deep Space 9.”

“I have no idea; I’m sorry. But isn’t it the parents’ job to find spouses for their children where you’re from?”

“Yes,” Assan snapped again. “It is, and they did, but it didn’t work out, and you and I both know my mother is of low regard on Vulcan, so she could rectify the situation, and I don’t want to talk about it; I want to figure out how to fix this!”

“Okay,” Gres said, almost soothingly. Then, for the first time during this strange conversation, he paused before asking carefully, “Are you asking me to… stand in for your father here, and help you find a wife?”

“Yes,” Assan murmured, having not realized it until Gres said it. “I guess I am.”

Gres drew in a deep breath, studying him seriously through the screen before he asked, “Okay, security officer, I have an idea, but it’s kind of a dubious one, so if you have any questions, I’ll try to answer them. How do you feel about doing shady things to help yourself, Deep Space 9’s security team, and a starship full of kidnapped people all at the same time?”

“What?” Assan asked in bewilderment.

“I tell you what: if I can’t get the go-ahead for this, we’ll do this your boring way. If I can, we’ll do it my way. _Either_ way, do you have access to transportation?”

Assan nodded. “A shuttle is mine for the next week.”

“Great. It’ll take you two days to get to Deep Space 9, so, if I were you, I’d start making your way here as soon as possible.” He glanced away from the screen, then back to Assan as he said, “We’re about to land, so—”

Assan nodded – “I’ll see you in two days” – and ended the transmission so that he could go to the shuttle he’d been assigned.

* * *

_Deep Space 9_

Gres nearly ran once he was back on the space station, his thoughts pulling in six separate ways as he went. He needed to talk to Dr. Bashir, Constable Odo, and Major Kira, quite possibly in that order. Since Dr. Bashir would be the easiest – and could be made to be the quickest – stop, he would come first, that way Gres could have one less thing on his mind as he approached Odo.

He found Dr. Bashir in his lab, studying vials of something-or-another, and said cheerfully, “Hello, doctor.”

“Mr. Wildman, hello!” Dr. Bashir set aside his vials, asking, “What can I do for you today?”

Gres shook his head. “Nothing, actually. I just…” He fished Naomi’s letter from the bag of clothes that he hadn’t yet bothered depositing in his quarters. “I’m kind of bursting at the seams to tell someone, and I thought that if anyone could… keep a positive spin on things, it’d be you.”

Dr. Bashir looked at the PADD in confusion for a second before his eyes lit up. “Oh, yes! I’d heard that Starfleet command had finally made contact with _Voyager_. You must’ve just returned from receiving your letter. How is Ensign Wildman? Well, I hope?”

“Fine, I think,” Gres agreed. “But this isn’t from Sam. This,” he grinned sideways at the letter in his hand. “Is from my daughter, Naomi. I have a daughter, doctor.”

Out of all the people on this space station, Dr. Bashir alone knew how much that meant to him, and the Englishman smiled in delight. “Congratulations, Gres. I’m very happy for you both. Would like a pint at the bar later to celebrate?”

“I would love to, but I have other things to do, and another trip out I hopefully have to plan, so…”

“Of course.” Dr. Bashir nodded, but there was worry flickering in his eyes as he commented, “You’re a very busy man.”

“Always.” Gres was still smiling as he moved to step away.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for discussions of forced prostitution in the following chapters.

“I’ve noticed, Gres.” Dr. Bashir took a step closer, and Gres remained where he was, swallowing a sigh as he prepared for the gentle rebuke that he knew was coming. “You did nothing but hassle Starfleet about _Voyager_ until the station was attacked, and then you threw yourself full-force into the deep end of infiltration, and now that there’s a lull in the fighting, you’re off to… do… what? Not rest, and resume life as a shopkeeper, I presume? Have you even opened your stall recently?”

“I make sure that I make enough to support myself,” Gres replied a little defensively. “After I’ve reached that point every month, I don’t see why I should just sit there, hoping to do nothing more than make excess money when there are still wars to be waged, bad guys to bring down, and good guys to help.”

“The _war_ has _paused_ , and I have a feeling it is _only_ a pause, so you need to take the chance to rest while you can!”

Dr. Bashir was treading the line of both physician and friend here, Gres knew it, and he wanted to respect it, but he shook his head, acquiescing to the urge to sigh this time before he muttered, “Rest and stillness and quiet is what will drive me insane; moving, going, fighting to help people and for things that I believe in? I _need_ that.”

“I know, but as your friend, I worry.”

“Well, think of it this way,” Gres attempted. “I just spent two days sitting, resting, on a shuttle to get to San Francisco, then another day in San Francisco—”

“—Where you doubtlessly stopped in at headquarters.”

“Of course I did, that was the whole point of going, to get my letters from headquarters.”

Dr. Bashir pressed his lips together at Gres deflection of what they both knew he meant.

Undeterred, Gres continued with his original thought. “And then I spent two more days sitting and resting on a shuttle as I came back here.”

“And now what are your plans?”

“Now I’m going to go talk to Constable Odo and Major Kira because I have an idea.”

Dr. Bashir nodded. “Of course you do. I expect nothing less.”

“Great. Thank you, doctor.” He walked away, putting an end to the conversation before it could progress further. 

Reaching his quarters, Gres put his bag on the bed, taking the two precious letters and putting them in his nightstand before he unceremoniously flung the bag of dirty clothes into the corner of the tiny room to be dealt with only if he needed the bag for an “away mission.” He plucked his comm badge – which he had thanks to his roll in the battle for the station – out of the nightstand drawer and said, “Wildman to Major Kira and Commander Odo.”

“Odo here.”

“Welcome back, Wildman.”

“Thanks, major. Can you two meet me in my quarters?”

“There’s barely room for a bed and one person in the quarters you have now,” Kira pointed out.

“My office, then,” Odo suggested. “I’m already here.”

“That works. I’m on my way now.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Gres’ path converged with Major Kira’s as they walked, and she said, “You know, if you hadn’t requested smaller quarters, we would be able to meet in the comfort of your home.”

Gres only hummed, not sure where to even begin taking that statement apart. “It’s only me; I didn’t like all the extra space of married quarters, and I’m not _in_ my quarters enough for it to matter usually.”

That was enough for her to drop the subject without Gres even mentioning that, over the past two years, in his mind, Deep Space 9 had come to feel more like a “base of operations” to him than it ever had been a home, so much more so without Sam at his side. A way of thinking that played into his constantly throwing himself at battles now that he was alone, and rarely partaking in _any_ of the more domestic opportunities at the station. He couldn’t have told anyone when the last time was he’d been to Quark’s, but he could give clear mission reports on the last five jobs he’d done.

Outside of the few vacation-like visits he’d taken to Vulcan over the years to see T’Pel and her family, he’d found himself very comfortably back in the role of a soldier who wasn’t unlike the man he’d been with the Maquis, before he’d even met Sam. And he was alright with that.

_ If he couldn’t be out there, searching for his wife… and daughter, then at least he could do  _ some _good in the world._

“What’s this about, Wildman?” Major Kira asked, immediately getting to the point as the two of them stepped into Constable Odo’s office.

“Do you remember the Cardassian ship that’s been hanging around the station for the past year, offering…” he blew out a breath. “Creature comforts, shall we say?”

“Slave girls, you mean? Forced prostitution?” Kira, eyebrows raised, was having none of his dancing around it.

“Yes,” Odo frowned at the mention of the ship. “We remember, of course we do.”

“But, Gres, we’ve talked about this before. That crew is good, they’re sneaky, and they’re using their laws to their advantage. We’re working on it, but we can’t just… storm the gates. Every girl on that ship has been made to sign a work contract that makes what’s happening legal because they’ve given their permission for it.”

“While under the influence of drugs,” Gres countered. “But that’s not important right now. We can’t get him on prostitution or kidnapping, fine. But we also have evidence that he’s been selling the girls and transferring their work contracts to individuals for the right price, and that’s definitely not legal.”

“No, but we can’t catch him in the act because he’s been doing that only as the opportunity presents itself while already flying around in a warzone at random,” Odo reminded him.

Major Kira was quicker to hit closer to Gres’ thoughts as she said, “And before you start in on it again, we can’t send in an infiltrator. You know I mean it when I say they’re using their own laws to their advantage. _If_ we catch them with an infiltrator, the infiltrator must go on trial, too.”

“Not necessarily,” Gres reminded her. “Those laws are meant to protect the victims, and how the law proceeds is up to the victim. Either, someone is found with a boughten girl and the girl declares them a bad guy and he goes to trial, _or_ the girl declares him a good guy – as in the case of a boyfriend buying back his girl instead of waiting and risking her getting hurt – and the duo are married since he’s declared a willingness to invest in her and she’s declared him… at least decent.”

“It’s barbaric very nearly either way you cut it, and no one here is willing to touch that setup,” Kira declared.

“So, we’re working on another way to get to him,” Odo reminded Gres firmly.

“Yeah, except I know a guy,” Gres informed them. “I have a friend who’s found himself in a situation, and we could resolve it by boarding this ship and solving all of our problems at once. But I need your permission to move as soon as he gets here.”


	18. Chapter 18

“You understand my mother will _kill_ me for this level of barbarianism,” Assan declared, sitting with Gres on the edge of Gres’ bed in his closet-sized quarters days later. “And that’s only _if_ I don’t go to Cardassian jail for it.”

“You’ll only die if T’Pel finds out the whole story.”

Assan glared at him. “She’s my mother, and I’m her baby boy, and she will find out.”

“I thought you would at least be willing to consider the sacrifice if it meant you could help a ship full of slaves, Starfleet, but it sounds like that’s a ‘no.’”

Assan already hated himself – and the desperation thrumming through his body, quite possibly clouding his judgement – as he answered, “I never said that I wouldn’t do it, but you are definitely going to have to be the one to explain it to my mother.”

Gres stood from the bed, declaring, “It’s a deal.”

* * *

_ For a starship, this place was hellish,  _ Assan decided, the purple decorations and fabric swathes scattered everywhere totally at odds with the dingy green walls of what was clearly a repurposed battleship. The few girls that were splayed around this ship’s convoluted version of a mess hall looked, for the most part, just as sickly and bland as the wall color.

_ He trusted Gres,  _ Assan reminded himself, and he really did. It was just… _he was being asked to pick what could quite possibly become his actual wife from this pitiful menagerie._

Before he could think too much about it, a Cardassian male with the usual slicked-back black hair was upon them, a hospitable smile on his face and murderous suspicion in his eyes. “Gentlemen, welcome to my comfort house! I don’t believe I recognize either of you as regulars… Oh! No!” He hesitated, his gaze swinging back from Assan to Gres as he said, his smile easing a little, “You I think I do recognize. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

Gres nodded, seemingly at ease here with his hands shoved comfortably in his pockets. It was only because he’d spent his life learning how to keep his emotions off his face that Assan was able to keep a straight face at that silent admission. 

“My friend here has a medical condition,” Gres said honestly, carrying himself with an edge of roughness that Assan had never seen in him before now. “That, it turns out, only a pretty girl can solve. So, I thought of you.”

“How good of you,” the Cardassian purred, and in his emotion-filled state, Assan hated him. That feeling, too, he kept off his face as the Cardassian turned to him, commenting, “A medical condition that only a pretty girl can fix?” He chuckled, amused with his own thoughts, and waved Assan forward, saying, “I may have just the girl for you.” He turned to Gres, ensuring, “I assume you’re going to take care of the payment, as you do for yourself?”

“Of course.” Gres smiled at Assan with paternal pride, and, at the look that he hadn’t seen in another’s face in years, some sort of grief Assan refused to identify caught in his throat. “It’s my gift to a young man I’m proud to know.”

“How good of you,” the Cardassian repeated before saying to Assan, “My associates will take care of the payment then. You may follow me.” As Assan followed the creature down a hall to what had once been crew quarters, he asked, “You are Vulcan?”

“Yes.” _Short answers were best, so as to give away as little as possible._

“And your people possess exceptional strength, don’t they?”

“According to some, yes.”

“Say… in comparison to a human girl?” The Cardassian stopped in front of one of the many closed doors in the hall, his hand hovering over a scanner that would unlock the door from the outside.

“Yes, Vulcan strength is superior to theirs.”

The Cardassian beamed. “Perfect. Perhaps, then, you can break this one in for me where others have failed.” Chuckling again at his own inside joke, he suggested as he opened the door, “Be sure to tell her she’s practically administering the medication you seek. Maybe it’ll make her more compliant.”

The door to a darkened room slid open, and as Assan stepped inside, he heard an intake of breath from the far corner of the room, the sound of someone readying for a fight. The door slid shut behind him, a locking mechanism clicking back into place somewhere in the door as dim, red lights flickered to life around the circumference of the room. Assan was practically vibrating as he caught sight of the girl across the room from him. She had been gorgeous, once upon a time, before this place and her circumstances had left her half-starved and covered in bruises with lines of stress carved into the face of a human of no greater maturity than himself. 

But it was her ragged clothing that caught his attention. What had once been a pair of black pants had been cut far too short to reveal her legs, and the remains of a telling blue turtleneck had also been torn half to shreds and then rearranged so that it provided only slightly more coverage than a bra would’ve. 

She had one hand on the floor beside where she crouched, very much ready to spring up and fight if it was needed, and her hand was tucked behind her back in a way that spoke of holding some improvised weapon.

He raised his hands so that she could see them, stepping carefully closer to her. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised levelly. 

He understood why it had been necessary for him to don civilian clothing before transporting aboard this ship from his shuttle, but he suddenly wished he hadn’t. Even as a cadet, he had learned that the Starfleet uniform inspired either confidence or hatred in others, and he had a feeling that it would be the former in this young woman. 

Crouching about six feet from her, he murmured, “You’re Starfleet, aren’t you?”

She ground her teeth, her gaze getting even harder, and he realized others before him had probably made the connection and made her life even harder because of it. 

“I am, too,” he informed her, watching her blue eyes flicker with wary uncertainty as he asked, “Are you from Deep Space 9? Does someone know your missing?”

She shook her head, seeming to decide that giving him that information wouldn’t hurt, but she didn’t tell him where his guesses had gone wrong, either. “I requested PTO,” she said in a ragged whisper. “To go home while the fighting had paused.” She swallowed roughly. “I didn’t even tell my mom, wanted to surprise her. I was the one who got a surprise. She was a civilian casualty of the war, so I turned around to come back to the space station. Cardassians soldiers beamed aboard my shuttle, took me, and traded me to Cakin for information he had about Deep Space 9 personnel rosters. My PTO isn’t up, so no one’s looking for me yet.”

“Cakin? Who’s that?”

She nodded towards the door, grinding her teeth again. “The Cardassian who let you in, Cakin Nolratt, owns and runs this hellhole.”

Assan nodded, shaking his head to try and keep his focus where it needed to be, on helping her instead of on the obvious pretense of sex that hung in an atmosphere of grotesquely twisted sultriness over this place. “You. Who are you?”

The wariness left her gaze for a split second as watched him lose focus for the same amount of time. “Ensign Hannah Whitley. I’ve been assigned to triage units all over this warzone for the duration of the conflict.”

“A medic.”

She nodded, and Assan tensed when the hand behind her back fell to her side. What had once been the heel of her uniform shoe rolled out of her hand, and Assan winced at the fact that she was in such dire straits that she had resorted to treating such a thing as her weapon. “Who are you?” she asked suspiciously.

“Ensign Assan.”

“You’re Vulcan.”

“Yes.”

“Cakin said you… wanted medication?”

“What?” Assan asked, not following her line of thought as he shook his head again to try and clear it of its desire-shrouded haze. He was pretty sure they hadn’t been her idea, but _those damn shorts of hers weren’t fair._ Even battered, in his current state, he thought she was beautiful.

“You’re experiencing _pon farr_.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for dubious consent in this chapter.

“What?” he asked again. It was a wildly direct and inappropriate question, and she was either a good medic or completely surrendered to her sex-centered life here to have made the statement the way she had.

He hoped for her sake it was the former.

“Every good lie has a thread of truth in it, Assan.” She said it again, repeating, “You’re going through _pon farr_ , and you took the opportunity of exhibiting the symptoms to get in here while you wouldn’t raise Cakin’s suspicions, while you looked so desperate for sex that he would believe you didn’t care where it came from.”

“Maybe, yes,” he admitted, turning his face away from her to draw in a steadying breath.

“Except, you’re young,” Ensign Hannah Whitley continued to think aloud, her voice strangely levelling out as she said, “I’d bet this is your first pon farr, and your control is slipping quicker than you thought it would.”

“I told you I wouldn’t hurt you,” Assan said, a reminder, he realized suddenly, that they both needed.

“But Cakin was right, in a way. If what we’re taught about pon farr is true, you need intimacy, and soon.” She blinked, the look in her eyes changing again as she said in a suddenly business-like tone, “So, what was your original plan here, Starfleet Ensign Assan?”

“I—” _Why had he gone along with Gres’ plan?_ It sounded ridiculous before he even said it… but that didn’t change the fact that he still had to say it. “In order to catch this... Mr. Nolratt red-handed, my… colleague and I thought that we might turn the laws he’s using to protect himself back in our favor.” As Gres had explained it to him, Assan briefly explained the part of the plan that had to do with closing Mr. Nolratt’s operation, ending with a frank, “So, I suppose I came here to ask, ultimately, how you would feel about becoming my wife in order to get out of here and put a stop to this operation.”

“That’s insane,” Ensign Whitley replied, but her tone was thoughtful, not yet refusing.

“My aunt has a saying,” Assan informed her. “About Starfleet. “Weird – ‘insane,’ as you say – is ‘in the job description.’”

“You’re asking me to mate with you,” Ensign Whitley murmured.

“No,” Assan shook his head, making his own amendments to Gres’ plan as he looked at her. “I’m asking you…” he made himself say the disgusting thing that needed to come next. “To allow me to… purchase you – permanently – from Mr. Nolratt. In following the course of the law, we may need to marry in order for him to be brought to justice – so long as you don’t choose to have me imprisoned alongside him – but we could have the marriage annulled on earth as soon as Mr. Nolratt is convicted and this place is shut down. At the very least, we just need to catch him in the act of selling a person; the rest may get complicated, but it can be dealt with later.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” he asked on an impatient sigh.

“Will you live long enough with your condition to see this case through?” she asked bluntly.

“Never mind ‘my condition.’ I’ll figure it out myself later. I don’t care what the original idea was. I didn’t realize… this place was… like _this_. I told you I won’t hurt you, and I won’t.”

“What did you think it was going to be?” Ensign Whitley asked on a tired, amused breath.

“I’ve seen prostitution before,” Assan said from between clenched teeth. “But in the places I’ve seen, in this age, they’re always people who’ve chosen that line of work. This is different, and I understood that coming in here, but I want nothing to do with it now that I’ve seen it.”

“Noble,” Ensign Whitley commented with the same tired smile. “But not practical. Cakin is going to take one look at you when you leave this room, know you’ve done nothing you say you’ve come for, and smell a rat. He’s paranoid enough to shoot you based on suspicion alone.”

Assan sprang sharply onto his feet, startling Ensign Whitley for a moment as he began to pace, and then asked, “What, then?”

“You’ve locked yourself in here on a very particular pretense. You need sex, and I need out, and we can get each other what we need. Like it or not, you have to follow your colleague’s original plan.”

“I do not.”

“You’re not listening to me, Ensign Assan,” she said, leaning her blonde head back against the wall as she admitted in a tired voice, “I want to help you. I know it sounds insane, but that’s the job, right? I’ll help you, then you’ll get out of here and help me.”

“That was never the plan,” he protested weakly.

“Then what was?”

“Getting you out first. Giving you a real choice to say ‘no’ once you were safe, then going from there.”

She looked at him for a long minute before murmuring, “You’re talking in circles.”

He knew that. He knew and he couldn’t help it and being stuck alone in this room with her was making him feel even worse. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sick.”

“Then let me heal you,” she said, surprising him when she eased up onto her feet, and she was the one approaching him like he was the wounded animal now. Somehow, though she was the one who looked so defeated, she had still slowly taken control of the conversation. “I am a medic, remember? And it is the means to an end for both of us. I’m here, you’re here, and that’s good enough; it’s logical that we help one another here.” 

“Don’t,” Assan said breathlessly, turning his face away from her as she got close enough to take his hand, then close enough that he could feel her breath against his cheek. He shook with the effort it took not to touch her – this stranger who he logically understood was only being compassionate at best and self-seeking, self-sacrificing, at worst.

He forgot to heed the logical side of his brain as she said, quiet and unmistakable, “I consent to this. Do you?”

_ What was he supposed to do but agree? _

He nodded, and that was all it took for her to rise onto her tiptoes, threading her hands into his hair as she pulled him until their foreheads were touching. “C’mere.”

_ The skin to skin contact was initiating a mating bond,  _ he realized, but he barely had time to wonder if he should try and stop that part of this – if there was even a way to do so – before the urges of the pon farr took over and he was lost to logical thought.


	20. Chapter 20

His head clearer than it had been in days, Assan lay in the bed that dominated half of the room Ensign Whitley was being held in. He felt sick to his stomach as he considered how much worse this could have gone, and as he sorted through the feelings he was getting from his new bond with the ensign. He did his best to override the nausea, though, so that he could send calming thoughts to her instead.

“Sleep, Whitley,” he suggested, running a gentle hand over a dark bruise that dominated her cheek. “No one else is going to come in here. Rest now, while I sort things out with Mr. Nolratt.”

She was still holding his free hand, he found when he tried to move, but when he gently tugged away from her, she didn’t react, her eyes staying closed where she lay. He hated that he didn’t know if it was because she was half asleep, or because she was in that much pain. She was a genuinely good person, and she didn’t deserve how she’d spent the last week going through hell here.

Assan dressed quickly, putting his hand over the scanner that allowed unfamiliar handprints to exit while keeping the identifiable occupant of each room locked inside.

“There you are!” Mr. Nolratt said cheerfully as Assan made his way back into the refurbished mess hall. “I trust everything was to your satisfaction?”

_ He wasn’t sure of any such thing _ , Assan could see that much in his eyes, and he felt a curl of pride in his gut at how fiercely Ensign Whitley had been fighting. “Yes,” he answered. “But it occurred to me that I don’t think I clarified what I needed.”

“And what’s that?” Mr. Nolratt asked with faux curiosity. 

For affect, Assan made sure to curl his lip a little in a Vulcan’s admission to disgust as he said, “My biology necessitated that in order to solve my… issue, I… unfortunately had to _mate_ with your woman.”

Mr. Nolratt’s eyes gleamed suddenly, and it was so much the look of a Ferangi about to make a deal that a less restrained man would’ve at _least_ clenched his jaw at it. Assan barely remembered that he was a properly restrained man as Mr. Nolratt hazarded, “Does that mean you wish not to be parted from your mate?”

Assan made a show of being disgruntled, of practically forcing himself to admit, “For purely biological reasons during this… difficult and extraordinarily private time.”

“Never fear,” Mr. Nolratt gave him a conspiratorial look. “Private is precisely how I prefer to keep my business. I’m sure gentlemen such as yourself can understand. I’m sure an agreement can be reached, for the sake of your bond with your mate.”

Assan nodded calmly, taking the bait being offered as he agreed, “Whatever it takes. I’m afraid my colleague…” his glare came almost too easily as he turned to Gres while talking to Mr. Nolratt. “Did not consider the full realm of possibilities when he offered your establishment as a solution to my condition; now I must take her with me, or else I could die.”

“Well, we certainly can’t have that!”

“Of course not,” Gres gave Assan a sharp look – like a father quelling his son’s insolence – as he told Mr. Nolratt. “Name your price. And the time and place.” He raised his eyebrows questioningly, adding, “I assume you don’t conduct business of this _particular_ nature this close to the Starfleet supremacists?”

“’Supremacists?’” Mr. Nolratt repeated, and for a moment, Assan was afraid Gres had taken his remarks too far and raised Nolratt’s suspicions by being _too_ disgruntled with Starfleet. “Starfleet are a lot of things, but it seems to me they’re annoyingly _anti_ -Supremacist.”

“Then you haven’t seen them through the eyes of a Ktarian,” Gres returned with a coolness that made Assan wonder just how genuine his comment was.

“My _mate_ ,” Assan demanded, bringing their focus back to where it needed to be before Gres could dig himself in any deeper.

“—Will be delivered to you this evening,” Nolratt finished evenly.

“Where?” Gres asked blandly.

And just like that, they were making plans to _buy_ another _living being_. As he was, Assan was tempted to ring Nolratt’s neck where they stood; _he could’ve done it, too_. In the interest of staying under the radar and making sure the mission went according to plan, he settled for making sure he grabbed the man hard enough for it to bruise as he and Gres prepared to transport back to his shuttle.

Nolratt looked at him, startled, and Assan said through gritted teeth, “Another thing: no one is allowed to touch her for the rest of her time with you; she’s off-limits to the rest of your clientele. If my terms are broken, I will know…” he squeezed until he saw Nolratt’s jaw clench with the pain. “And I will hold you personally responsible.”

“I don’t take well to threats,” Nolratt replied lightly. “The money is what matters to me, not if you live or die if this deal falls through.”

“I’ll have time to kill you before I go,” Assan promised as he felt the transporter start to take hold of him.

Back on his shuttle, Gres immediately turned to him, asking sharply, “What was that?”

His parting words to Nolratt, Gres meant. They hadn’t been part of the agreed-upon parameters for improvisation, and Assan couldn’t have cared less. So, he shrugged. This week, more than most, he didn’t have to care if the gesture was insolent, so he didn’t. “The truth,” he said simply. “I will know if she’s hurt in my absence, in which case I will make him pay.”

“No,” Gres reminded Assan, making his way to the helm. “Odo and Kira will make him pay when they catch him tonight while we make our deal. You keep your objectivity, or things go wrong, and somebody gets hurt. I know you’re new to Starfleet, but you’re not stupid, you know that much.”

Assan collapsed into the copilot’s chair, already feeling more tightly wound the farther he got from Ensign Whitley – _damn his biology!_ “Mr. Wildman, I wasn’t being dramatic back there. What… the woman and I did in there—what she instigated—I don’t know if any of us meant for it to happen this way, in the entirety that it did, but she _is_ my mate. And I don’t know that you understand what that means.”


	21. Chapter 21

Gres gave him a strange look as he asked, “What’s her name, Assan?”

“Hannah Whitley.”

Gres nodded, looking back at the viewscreen. “That’s where I thought he directed you – where I always suspected he would direct you.”

“Why?”

“I went to his ship – undercover – the day before I left for San Francisco; I just so happened to glance what I _thought_ was The Rat’s men bringing in an unconscious Starfleet science officer. When I got back to the station, I told Kira and Odo, gave them a physical description, and we checked for anyone matching that description who wasn’t at the station. Ensign Hannah Whitley’s name came up. She was taking PTO to see her mother, but her shuttle had been picked up on scanners in what appeared to be a return route to the station before she was due back. Before she could return to the station, her shuttle was tractored into The Rat’s ship, and that’s the last I knew for sure before I left to go to San Francisco. However, before I left, Kira talked to Jadzia Dax, the station’s chief scientist, who’s had a few chances to work with Whitley whenever her shuttle’s been docked in the station. She swore she thought Whitley was made of as much steel as the best of them, so I thought, maybe, if we played our cards right today, The Rat would play the exact hand he did.

“On one hand, Whitley gave you sex because she felt bad for you, but if you’d needed it bad enough, and you were the man you presented to The Rat, you could’ve taken it from her. Either way, you leave satisfied, and The Rat feels like he’s won something – be it money, or power over his most recent and troublesome acquisition.”

Assan sat back in his seat, watching Gres for a moment before he asked, “How are you so good at this? When did you get so good at… understanding the darkness in people?”

Gres’ lips thinned. “I don’t know, and I don’t like it. Just… if everything goes the way I hope it will, do me a favor?”

“What?”

“If this ensign really does become your mate – your wife – don’t let go of her.”

* * *

“You’re not going to have me incarcerated?” Assan asked, feeling a little surprised despite himself. “You understand you’re within your rights if you wish to, don’t you?”

“I do,” Ensign Whitley replied evenly, a strange little smile playing about the edges of her mouth as she let another science officer run a dermal regenerator over the last of her bruises. “Major Kira made sure I understood my rights before she and Constable Odo took Cakin in the other shuttle.”

“And you’re still not going to press charges against either of us?” Assan checked again, gesturing between himself and Gres, sitting at the helm with his back to them.

“Don’t draw me into this,” Gres objected.

“You are already involved,” Assan shot back. _Most of this whole day had gone according to_ Mr. Wildman’s _plan!_

“But that doesn’t matter,” Ensign Whitley assured them. “Because I was never planning on pressing charges against either of you. Cakin, certainly—”

“The Rat,” Gres called back.

“Short for ‘Nolratt.’” She grinned over her shoulder at Gres. “I like it. Anyway,” she turned back to Assan. “I knew once you and I started talking this afternoon that you were an undercover Starfleet officer, on some sort of mission to break up ‘The Rat’s’ operation, and isn’t that what happened?”

“Yes.”

“Why would I hurt a fellow officer who’s helped me, then?” she asked as the medical officer, their work considered done, wandered to the co-pilot’s seat beside Gres.

“Because if you don’t declare me worthy of incarceration, we’re legally bound by the Cardassian this trial will go through to go to the other extreme and marry.”

Ensign Whitley glanced towards Gres and the medic before leaning in closer to Assan and saying quietly, “I was under the impression that the bond we established this afternoon… established some things… in that direction regardless.”

“A mating bond,” he agreed, glancing away. “I’m not sure how to break it now, but I can find a way; I won’t have you trapped in a marriage you don’t want to a feelingless man.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ve been in your brain today as much as you’ve been in mine, you know.”

“I do.”

“You’re not a feelingless man. You’re Vulcan—” her hair fell in a tangled mess over one shoulder as she tilted her head, watching him shrewdly as she added, “For the most part, and, as it happens, there’s a difference between being a Vulcan and being devoid of feelings.”

“What makes you think _you_ have the right to tell _me_ that?” he asked a little testily.

“You’re right, maybe I shouldn’t have made a blanket statement about all Vulcans, but _you_ are not a feelingless Vulcan, and I can say _that_ because I’ve felt the emotions that are running around in your head today. Is that better?”

“Yes,” Assan answered grudgingly, because it still did nothing to dissuade her from the argument against him.

“As a physician, can I make a request?” Ensign Whitley asked.

“Yes?”

“For your health’s sake, wait until your… week is over to try and mess with this bond. You need it to help you return to full health, don’t you?”

There was a grain of truth to that which annoyed him; he still felt like he hadn’t given her a choice in what had happened to her so far, and he hated it. That wasn’t the type of man he was. “I require it for this week, but once the worst of my condition has run its course, I can find a way to break the bond and manage the rest alone.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, medically, for your health, I mean.”

“Why do you care?” Assan asked, nearing exasperation, because he could tell that she did.

“You helped me, I help you; that’s what we agreed upon,” Ensign Whitley replied with a relaxed shrug, but her patience was starting to wane too, he could feel that much through their bond.

 _Still…_ “Yes, but—”

“Assan.” At her tone, he snapped his mouth warily shut as she took his hands, either to better get his attention or help convey just how much she meant what she was saying as she whispered, “Do you really think that after the week I have had having sex with one man – a good man, in need of real help – is going to bother me? It’s not.”

“That’s not healthy, either,” he pointed out, keeping his own voice just as quiet. “And I don’t want to take advantage.”

“Yeah, well, I want you to. Doctor’s orders.” She leaned in to kiss his cheek, and, quite without his permission, his breath hitched at her proximity. “Please?” she asked with a badly repressed grin.

“You know what I like about this shuttle?” Gres called back, interrupting Assan’s wandering thoughts.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s bigger than just a transport shuttle, far bigger than what you needed, actually.”

“Because it was the first thing they could assign to me.”

“Fun.” Gres said carelessly before asking, “You know what that means?”

“What?”

“There are crew quarters for a dozen people – six bedrooms – down the two corridors.”

“I know that,” Assan replied in confusion.

Beside him, Ensign Whitley began to chuckle. She stood, pulling Assan onto his feet, too, as Gres said, “Then before you do whatever you’re about to do, go pick one, and stay in there for a while, okay?”

“Okay,” Ensign Whitley answered for them both, and Assan decided that, for now, he could stop objecting and let her have her way.


	22. Chapter 22

Someone _kept_ pinging Assan’s comm badge from wherever it was on the floor of the bedroom. And _kept_ doing it.

Assan almost jumped out of his skin when it finally registered what was being transmitted across the badge, though: “Major Kira to Ensigns Assan and Whitley.”

He hurried towards his jacket as Ensign Whitley pulled the covers over her pale body, watching him. “We’re here, major.”

“I need you both up by helm control. We’re almost ready to land, and I’ve transported aboard your shuttle because there are some things we need to discuss before we do.”

“She’s hung up on this trial,” Ensign Whitley said on a quiet breath as she climbed from the bed and began to dress.

Assan sighed, schooling his thoughts as well as he could towards the far more appropriate matters at hand as he said, “As well she should be. She wants to ensure that you and the other women on ‘The Rat’s’ ship get justice.”

“I don’t mean The Rat,” Ensign Whitley replied with a worried glance in his direction. “The others they found aboard his ship will do enough damage to him that my testimony won’t even be needed if I don’t want to stick around for his trial – which I don’t.”

“Gres and I,” Assan realized.

“Yes. I’m not going to make it into a—an ordeal,” Ensign Whitley promised. “I just want to forget this week ever happened.”

Assan gave her a careful look as he slipped his uniform jacket on, handing her the jacket from the science uniform the medic aboard had replicated for her. “Maybe she has a way to help you make that happen.” 

“Maybe,” she agreed, accepting the jacket with a small smile of thanks. “But somehow I doubt it.”

Unsure what to say to that, Assan merely held the door open for her as they walked out together.

“There you are,” Major Kira said, turning from the viewscreen to face them when she heard them approaching. Getting directly to the point of the conversation, she said, “Wildman, this could concern you, too, so listen up,” and then asked, “Do all three of you realize that the trial, such as it is for these two,” she gestured between Gres and Assan, “Starts as soon as we land? The authorities are going to need to know who to arrest right away.”

A trio of “yes, sirs” met her question.

She turned to Ensign Whitley, asking calmly, “Have you decided how you wish to proceed?”

“All due respect, major, I told you before you took Cakin away what I intended to do regarding my fellow officers,” Ensign Whitley reminded her evenly.

“I wanted to make sure your intentions remained the same,” Major Kira replied, matching the ensign’s purposefully-not-strained tone. “And then I want to remind you that if you don’t press charges, you’re technically invoking a loophole in the laws regarding the man whose name is on the… sale papers. In order for charges to not be pressed, you have to be willing to marry the man – in this case, Ensign Assan here – essentially immediately. Are you comfortable with _that_?”

Here Ensign Whitley turned to Assan, turning the question onto him through their bond, feeling his hesitant agreement – _if it was what she really wanted for any amount of time_ – before she told Major Kira, “I think we can work with that, yes.”

Major Kira’s gaze flicked to Assan, who nodded his silent agreement, before she said only, if a little uncertainly, “Okay. Then I guess my work here is done for now.”

“In that case,” the middle-aged medic who’s name Assan still hadn’t been given turned in the copilot’s seat, suggesting to Ensign Whitley, “Why don’t we try and work some of the tangles out of your hair?”

* * *

Things went exactly as Major Kira said they would, and in short order Cakin was imprisoned awaiting trial, Gres was let off the hook, and Assan was married to Ensign Whitley in a Cardassian ceremony that Vulcan won’t recognize as his family might be tempted to disown him for. Just as quickly, before the tense air between Federation people and the Cardassians could explode into something beyond tension, Gres, Ensign Whitley, and Assan re-boarded his shuttle while Odo, Kira, and the medic followed them in the shuttle they came in. 

“I’m flying, you two are getting your heads on straight before we get back to the station,” Gres ordered, folding himself into the pilot’s chair to punctuate his order. 

“It is only an hour-long flight,” Assan reminded him. “What do you expect us to ‘get straight?’”

“Whatever you feel is most important.” Gres smirked at them, commenting, “Don’t make me _tell you_ to go to your room, please? Go yourselves, to a place where you can have a private, grownup conversation without me having to hear it.”

Assan almost told Gres that he doubted anything they said would make him uncomfortable, but that was when he realized what he was feeling through his mating bond with the other ensign. Turning to look at her, he saw the telling blush that he’d missed before, saw that Gres was trying to give them a dignified way to excuse themselves. _Under his orders, in fact._

“Aye, sir,” he said dryly, allowing his hand to brush against Ensign Whitley’s as they walked together back to the bedroom they’d chosen.

And despite was Gres had suggested, they didn’t particularly talk once they were alone.

* * *

The next day morning, they were back on Deep Space 9, having spent the night in guest quarters the way newlyweds were usually assumed to have spent their wedding night… _and yet somehow,_ Assan, thought in irritation, _Gres Wildman thought that it was appropriate to keep trying to initiate a conversation through their comm badges when Assan_ just _wanted to be left alone with his mate._

“What?” he finally snapped through the comm, disentangling himself from Ensign Whitley when the persistent beeping didn’t go away.

“I just thought,” Gres replied levelheadedly. “That you might be interested in knowing that Jadzia Dax and I were able to get you an extra few days off-duty due to Ensign Whitley’s… condition starting – and thereby ending – a few days later than yours. Does that sound like something you would be interested in?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Assan replied shortly.

“You also get to keep your shuttle for the duration of that time, in case you wish to return to Vulcan.”

From the bed, Ensign Whitley declared logically, “I do think that would help us both. It would make the symptoms of… what we’re going through less severe.”

“I don’t think you’re ready to meet my family. This situation is too complicated for that.”

“Why? I’m not afraid of them. And speaking from a medical perspective, it would make this already unusual… way of going about this a little less stressful for you.”

She wasn’t budging from that opinion, and Assan was starting to realize how much of a quietly stubborn woman he had wed. “Gres,” he asked through the comm while watching the ensign. “Would you be willing to be our pilot?”

Gres was grinning, Assan could hear it, as the Ktarian replied, “I would be glad to.”


	23. Chapter 23

_Vulcan_

Assan’s mother was, understandably, concerned at the news of the marriage – in fact, she seemed bitterly sad in ways that she refused to vocalize. Sek, T’Lin, and Asil were concerned, too, but it was Solik’s and Farun’s quiet anger that startled Assan the most. He had known on some level that his family wouldn’t support his marriage to a human, no matter how long it lasted, no matter why he’d done it… He hadn’t expected his twin to become verbally angry, shouting at him and Ensign Whitley in a way that made her already battered nerves set even Assan’s teeth on edge just through their bond.

Logically, he told himself to give Solik and Farun the benefit of the doubt. All four of them now were experiencing the pon farr on some level, emotions were bound to run high, and it was irregular for Solik and Farun to have even left their newly-established home to greet Gres, Ensign Whitley, and Assan upon their arrival. Emotionally, Sek had felt the need to stand between his brothers and talk them down before ordering Solik and Farun out with T’Pel telling them sharply that they weren’t to return until they could be civil – which Assan took to mean not until the end of their pon farr.

For their part, Sek and T’Lin seemed to agree that they trusted Assan and Ensign Whitley “to come to the proper decisions once the week had passed,” then they took T’Meni from where she’d been playing with Alessi in another room and took their leave. Conveniently, Gres took T’Meni’s place with Alessi and left Assan and Ensign Whitley alone with his mother.

“I’m not upset with you,” T’Pel promised them as soon as they were alone in the sitting room, but she was pacing while they watched in a way that made it clear that she wasn’t happy at the moment either. “I am concerned. By now you… both know that I haven’t found the mixed-species marriage, such as mine is, to be particularly easy.”

“But you love Father no less for it,” Assan pointed out.

His mother winced, replying, “Which is a statement that defines our… struggles better than you realize. I love your father,” she said frankly. “I _feel love_ , and I have come to a place over the past ten years where I don’t see that as a fault of my own character. But your father does not – cannot – love me, which is no fault of his own character, either. We simply are who we are. That does not mean that I want either of you to experience our struggles, though.”

“You mean if I don’t have the compacity, as a husband, to love a human wife,” Assan summarized, sitting back on the settee.

“Precisely. So, you do understand?”

“No,” Assan answered frankly. “I don’t. Since the day Father began to teach me meditation techniques and Vulcan mind control, I understood that I didn’t have as… sufficient a grasp on the subject as my brothers and Asil. As I got older, I, in fact, came to understand that my grasp on the subject, on my own mind and emotions, often fell short – was, in fact, viewed as _in_ sufficient. And now… now, suddenly I am being told that you fear I will not be able to emote… enough? I believe the term is… ‘I can’t win for losing,’ isn’t he?” he asked, glancing at Ensign Whitley.

His sadness was making her sad, Assan felt the vicious loop starting in their bond. He was still surprised when she reached for his hand, trying to comfort him physically, by some human instinct, as well as through their bond.

Frowning in her own sadness and frustration with her ability to communicate the whole realm of her thoughts, T’Pel watched as they were only able to hold hands for a moment before the pull of the pon farr became too much and they pulled apart, moving to sit further away from one another on the settee. “Maybe your brother has a point – Sek, I mean. You ought to let your condition run its course, then we will talk once we are all clearheaded again. For now, I think it would be best if you spent the rest of your week bedding down in the shuttle Starfleet assigned you.”

“Yes, Mother,” Assan agreed, thinking that, if nothing else, as their urges from the pon farr wound down later, he and Ensign Whitley could decide once and for all what they wanted to do next before they faced his family again.

* * *

T’Pel swept her hair out of her face, listening to the front door close behind Assan and his new – _human!_ – bride before she went into Alessi’s bedroom to check on her youngest child. _Maybe, hopefully, Gres could make sense of some part of what had happened since she’d last talked to Assan._

When she entered, Gres glanced up at her from where he was sitting on the floor with Alessi, watching her play with her blocks. “Hello. I don’t think I told you ‘hello’ yet.”

“Hello,” she repeated blandly.

He looked at her for a long moment before he said, “What’s the matter? You’ve got a lot on your mind.”

“For a week that started so spectacularly,” she admitted on a sigh. “This is going to end as possibly the worst week I’ve had in the past four years.”

Gres looked at her, flabbergasted as he asked, “How? Your week started with a letter from your husband—” _Where he had told her, among other things, that they had lost their relationship with Kathryn, but Gres couldn’t know that._ “Your remaining sons got _married…_ ” Watching her, his expression suddenly shuttered so completely that it would’ve made a Vulcan proud. “Is that what the problem is – that Ensign Whitley is a human?”

She swallowed a sigh. “I do not know her, Gres, and from what I can tell my son does not know her well enough, either.”

“I thought Vulcans entered into arranged marriages all the time with people they didn’t know very well.” He stood to his feet in one smooth gesture, asking, “Isn’t that the point of a Vulcan male taking a year at home with his bride?”

“Yes, it is, but I do not know how or when Assan met this girl; she has no family that has recommended her, I do not know what her motives are. I know nothing, and though they held themselves together admirably in the sitting room, they are not in any condition to explain things to me right now. So, I’m sorry, but I’m a little taken aback.”


	24. Chapter 24

Gres crossed his arms over his chest, asking suspiciously, “So, this has nothing to do with the fact that she’s human? Because I didn’t peg you for being that sort of person.”

“I will decide later if that’s going to be a real concern.” Gres snorted in disbelief as she continued, “Right now, I just want to know the basics about a girl I am supposed to call my daughter.”

Gres sighed, looking out the window before he turned to T’Pel, hands spread wide, and asked, “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you everything I can.”

So, he did, and while it was a wild tale, by the end of it, T’Pel could see why Assan had reacted as rashly and as quickly as he had; he was Starfleet, and someone had needed help, and she could see her son making it as simple a matter as that.

As she calmed, she noticed Gres smiling a little to himself. “What is it?”

“Nothing, really, just that Assan and I did make a deal that I would be the one to explain everything to you, and now I have.”

“Good to know you’re a man of your word.”

She heard the continued edge in her tone at the same time as he did, and he fixed her with his considering gaze once again, asking, “What else is bothering you? Because there is clearly something else.”

There was, but the last thing she wanted to do was tell him about it. Still… if there was anyone who deserved to hear it from her instead of through a ridiculous gossip chain, by now, it was Gres. “When I left San Francisco, I brought a computer home, theoretically for staying in contact with my sons when they’re away. Most recently, however, I’ve stayed in contact with Admiral Hayes since coming back to Vulcan to be here for Solik and Farun’s wedding. The… _people_ in charge of helping _Voyager_ —” in a random moment of perverseness, she refused to give them the respect of calling them officers. “Have decided to cut resources to the effort for now.”

“ _What_? On the heels of establishing contact with _Voyager_ , they want to _stop_ efforts to help them?”

“Not stop, just… redirect most of the manpower,” T’Pel allowed. “Because there are more pressing, more present matters here closer to home.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Gres said sharply enough that Alessi dropped her blocks and glared up at him.

T’Pel ran a hand over her daughter’s hair soothingly, answering, “I agree.” She paused before adding, “But your story about your mission with Assan may have given me an idea.”

Gres’ gaze upon her became increasingly wary before he asked, “Are you going to get us into trouble?”

“I might.” She drew in a breath and gave him the most confident smile she could manage, asking, “If it got you back to Ensign Wildman and Naomi, would you be willing to come along?”

“Explain, please,” Gres requested, his rightful wariness still very much in place.

“You mentioned that Assan and Ensign Whitley wed because of a—a loophole in the laws, meant to protect brave lovers who get impatient and wish to skip ahead of the system to find their lost loves themselves?”

“Yes. What about it?”

T’Pel gestured towards the shuttle sitting very unmistakably in her side yard. “We could find them ourselves.”

He paused, not outright saying “no,” and instead asking, “How do you suggest we do that? Logically, please, Mrs. Vulcan, because as much as I would love to go rogue and head out like a cowboy into the wild west that is the Delta Quadrant to rescue my damsel in distress, I’m going to need a little more convincing if you think the two of can just climb into that shuttle and potentially take on… I don’t know, the Borg to get to them.”

“I don’t think that, precisely, not at all. But that shuttle… I know I’m no expert, but I thought I noted torpedo launch systems, and that hull is reinforced, isn’t it?”

“Technically speaking, yes, it is ‘battle-ready.’ However, there are only three torpedoes, two phaser banks, one replicator for however many people you think we’re getting on this shuttle, no holodeck to combat stir-craziness in a long-term trip. My point is:” For some reason, Gres’ hand was trembling as he held it up, though which one of them he was trying to stop, T’Pel had no idea. “You think you want to do this, but you don’t. Shuttles like this one were made to enter active warzones when transporters went bad on ships, that way they could still get wounded people out and back to medics in time. It was made to sustain heavy fire, not necessarily to return it, and that would be a problem if we ever ran into a situation where we really needed to defend ourselves.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Gres spread his hands beseechingly, trying to get her to understand his point of view. “We don’t have the right sort of spacecraft for this _at all_.”

“No, Gres, what we do not _have_ are our spouses. And right now, we _do_ have a ship that moves and _could_ get us to _Voyager_ if we’re smart about it, and we have _Voyager_ ’s coordinates as of less than a week ago. One of you Starfleet people—”

“I’m not Starfleet.”

“—Then you shouldn’t have any problem making them angry—should be able to do the calculations required to find their trajectory and estimate their course so that maybe we could eventually rendezvous with them.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Gres muttered, rubbing his head as if she’d given him a headache. “But it won’t be.”

“That does not mean it won’t be worth it.”

He stared at her, thinking, and she let him, holding his gaze confidently the whole time. Now that she’d had the idea, it was not one she was going to let go of easily. 

“You do realize that Starfleet still has two ships out in space right now doing exactly what you’re suggesting we do ourselves?” Gres tried.

“I do, but they don’t have the same motivations – and thereby determination – that we do. Plus, if we are being honest, they are Starfleet; they feel the need to abide by the rules. We would be starting out by stealing a shuttle, so I think we could do without those constraints, don’t you?”

Gres pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment before looking at her sharply and declaring, “I thought Vulcans didn’t so much as lie!”

She smiled serenely, watching his resolve begin to crumble. “That is a lie we have perpetrated.”


	25. Chapter 25

For the next three days, while they waited for Solik, Assan, Farun, and Ensign Whitley to “return to themselves,” as it were, Gres found himself humoring T’Pel, and trying to put together a plan to reach _Voyager_. Which he did partially because there wasn’t much else to do on Vulcan to keep himself busy, and partially because of a growing fear that T’Pel might try and take the shuttle herself in the middle of the night. Not because of his own growing desire to do exactly what she’d suggested, and certainly not because he was beginning to think that, if they could make it past the first couple steps of their plan, this might actually work.

On day two of planning their hypothetical journey _into_ the Delta Quadrant – _because apparently they were becoming those lunatics_ – Gres brought Sek in on the idea, hoping for a fresh perspective and someone to pour a bucket of cold, reality-laden water over T’Pel, seeing as his attempt to do so was having the opposite effect.

Sek, thankfully, took one look at their plan and said, “If that is how you intend to begin this journey, you will die or be captured before you can even begin at all.”

“Why?” T’Pel asked.

“For one thing, that wormhole is supposed to be impassable right now.”

“We are going to try it anyway.”

Looking at his mother’s face, the stubborn tilt of her chin and the embers burning in her eyes, Sek drew in a slow breath as he realized, “You… are serious.”

T’Pel looked back down at the map-covered table where she and Gres had spent the last two days, saying carefully, “Planning this is something to do; consider it a mental puzzle if you want to.”

“You hate such things,” Sek pointed out.

She gave Sek a sharp look from underneath her eyelashes. “I’m entertaining our guest. Now, hypothetically, ensign, how might one reduce the risk of alerting Starfleet security to our presence as we approach the wormhole?”

“Forgive my tone, Mother, but _you’re opening up a wormhole_. They will notice, they will dispatch officers, and you could only hope that they didn’t transport directly onto your spacecraft, at that.”

“Very well. Hypothetically, is there a way to neutralize them, preferably without harming them, so that we can continue through the wormhole?”

Sek shot Gres an accusatory look, and Gres raised his hands in surrender, making sure Sek understood this hadn’t been his idea in the first place. His face as impassive as ever, Sek looked away, towards Alessi playing where she could be seen on the other side of the archway to the sitting room, and Gres was struck, not exactly for the first time, how it must weigh on him to be the man of his family while his father was lost. 

Sek sighed deeply, pulled out a chair at the table, and sat down. “Starfleet officers that are related to _Voyager_ ’s crewmembers have access to all the data that _Voyager_ sent to headquarters insofar as officer’s individual clearances will allow. What that means,” he grabbed his mother’s computer, spun it around so it was facing him. “Is that I may have access to cloaking technology that they’ve run across. If you, Gres, can modify the shuttle, we may be able to avoid detection, both visibly and on scanners, which would mean science officers trying to find out why the wormhole was opening, instead of security officers trying to neutralize the people opening it.”

Gres and T’Pel both blinked at him for a moment before T’Pel said slowly, looking between the two men, “That… could change everything… couldn’t it? If we’re cloaked, and no one can detect us, that means that far less people are going to come after us, even in the Delta Quadrant, correct?”

“Yes,” Sek agreed, before tacking on pointedly, “Hypothetically.”

Gres nearly fell back into his chair as he realized that with two sentences Sek had done the exact opposite of what he had expected him to, when T’Pel said, her resolve visibly hardening, “No. No… let’s talk realistically now.”

“Realistically,” Sek repeated on a sigh before informing her. “ _Voyager_ wasn’t able to apply this technology to their whole ship. It was too much of a power drain to cover such a large surface.” He hesitated before telling Gres, “If you admit I showed you this, I will throw you under every bus I need to, proverbial and otherwise, and it will be the word of a Starfleet officer against a Maquis Ktarian.”

“Sek!” T’Pel snapped, shocked.

Gres just smiled thinly at Sek and turned the computer so that he could see the specs the Vulcan had pulled up. “Speaking as an ops man, hypothetically, in order for this to work, I would need to almost completely rework the power relay output in the shuttle.”

“But you are not saying that it will not work,” T’Pel pointed out, still glancing disapprovingly at her son.

“I’m not promising it will, either,” Gres informed her, comparing the specs with a schematic of the shuttle that he’d pulled off the spacecraft’s database. 

“Are you saying you are willing to attempt it?”

“No!” Sek said sharply before Gres could. “No one tampers with anything in real space before there is a solid, feasible plan in place, completely ready to be carried out. And, not to point out the blatantly obvious, but the shuttle has four stations and only two people apparently willing to get on it – unless there are others I don’t know about?”

T’Pel frowned at Sek, saying, “Don’t you wish to see your father? Don’t you wish Alessi _knew_ her father? We can make that happen here… as a family.”

Sek’s face went stony as he said, “You are asking me to take my civilian wife and young daughter into the Delta Quadrant?”

“Yes. But there are children aboard _Voyager_ now; I’m sure they’re safe, as I’m sure T’Meni and Alessi will be with us. I’m only asking you to think about it, Sek, please.”

_ He had severely underestimated T’Pel’s growing powers of persuasion _ , Gres realized as he watched Sek’s expression just barely waver. “I will discuss it with my wife,” Sek declared in a tone that, to Gres’ ears, at least, brooked no further discussion.

T’Pel nodded. “That’s all I ask.”


	26. Chapter 26

Two days after bringing Sek in on the idea, with the chemical balances in both her sons and daughters-in-law returning to normal, they all sat down at T’Pel’s still map-laden table, most of the young adults looking at the constrained chaos in confusion.

Assan’s eyes were already glittering, though, as he realized what he was seeing.

The ensuing conversation and litany of explanations took most of the day, but for a bunch of Vulcans – for the most part – they were surprisingly willing to hear T’Pel out, and give credence to the plan that she, Sek, and Gres had devised.

At the end of the day, as well as Gres could discern, T’Pel wanted to go, her daughters would go wherever she went, her sons wanted to protect her, and their wives and children would go wherever they went. So, in shockingly short order, everyone had essentially agreed to go if Gres could get the cloaking technology operational.

On some level, though, he was surprised to realize as he listened to the Vulcans around him talk that they were intentionally excluding one person at the table from their “crew manifest.” He leaned over to the girl next to him, asking in a whisper meant for only Ensign Whitley to hear, “Do you _want_ to be involved in this?”

“Well,” she pressed her lips into a thin line. “I did just sit through a whole explanation of how you plan on essentially committing treason against the Federation, so, either you take me with you, or I am dutybound to turn every one of you in.”

 _Yeah, that probably hadn’t been their smartest move._ But it wasn’t his fault; T’Pel’s family seemed so determined to ignore the ensign’s continued presence that they hadn’t even thought to send her away – except for Assan, Gres suspected, noting the young man watching them talk through his periphery. “That doesn’t tell me whether or not you want to be involved,” he pointed out.

“Does anyone who’s going have medical training?” she asked.

“Not that I know of.”

She swallowed a sigh, answering tiredly, “Then you need me.”

 _She wasn’t wrong_ , Gres allowed before checking, “Is that a ‘yes,’ then?”

Ensign Whitley nodded, giving him a wavering smile as she nodded.

“Okay. Guys, hey,” Gres raised his hand to get their attention. “Here’s what I think we need to know: we have a plan for how to get to _Voyager_ – great – but do we have the needed manpower?”

“What do you mean?” Solik asked.

“How many people here know how to pilot the shuttle?”

Gres, Sek, Assan, and Ensign Whitley all raised their hands.

“Do we have a passible cook?”

T’Pel, Asil, Farun, and T’Lin raised their hands.

“Do we have someone to look after the little girls? It’s not like we can have them running around a bridge as small as the one we’ll have, and they’ll eventually need teachers, too.”

All hands from his previous round of questioning stayed raised.

“Even in a time of crisis, someone is prepared to deal with them? Protect them?”

“Of course,” T’Lin answered. “They are our family.”

“Good.” Gres nodded before moving on. “How about an ops guy? Wait, that’s me.”

“Assan and I can also fill the post as needed,” Sek pointed out. “And if engineering is your next question, we can do that as well – also as needed. Tactical is what we were specifically trained for, though.”

Gres smiled dryly at Sek, pointing out, “It sounds like the three of us will be working together a lot, then, filling in each other’s shoes. Now, we are headed into the Delta Quadrant, and I have a feeling there are going to be times when that’s going to get messy, so here’s the big question: does anyone here have medical training? Triage? Anatomy? Anything?”

“I have training as a midwife,” Farun volunteered falteringly.

“Well, when I’m pregnant, you’ll be the first to know,” Gres joked without thinking, then watched a ripple of surprise play across the faces of every Vulcan at the table.

Farun began to ask hesitantly, “In your species, does the ma—”

“No, no.” Gres held up his hand to stop her, resisting the urge to rub at the persistent headache that had been pounding away at his temples for days. “It was a joke. Just a joke. We may have to work on your collective sense of humor while we’re aboard this shuttle.”

“Vulcans do not have a ‘sense of humor,’” Sek declared.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed you guys claim not to have a lot of things,” Gres remarked. _Things he’d turned right around and noticed in T’Pel over the years…_ but that didn’t matter right now. “My point is, we need a medic, and, forgive me, but Ensign Whitley,” he gestured to the young woman at his side. “Is a Starfleet-certified triage medic who, by the way, has just heard our whole plan.”

“You’re going to turn us over to Starfleet,” Sek accused immediately, starting to rise from the table.

Assan hooked his foot on his brother’s chair and pulled so that Sek was sharply forced to sit back down as Ensign Whitley replied evenly, “That, or you’re going to let me come with you. As things stand right now, I have as much right to be a part of this as Farun and T’Lin do.”

Solik visibly bristled, and Gres bit his tongue.

“Of course you can come, Ms. Whitley,” T’Pel told her kindly. “We’ll be grateful to have your expertise aboard, I’m sure.”

Gres was equally sure of two things: that T’Pel was right and they would need a medic aboard, and that this was going to be a _long_ lifetime of travel if relationships between them didn’t improve. _Anything for Sam and Naomi_ , he reminded himself firmly.

“You can call me ‘Hannah,’ if you’d like,” Ensign Whitley commented. She glanced at Assan, adding quietly, “You all can.”

Gracious as ever, T’Pel nodded, repeating, “Hannah, then.” She smiled gently, offered, “Every other daughter-in-law of mine calls me ‘Mother;’ you may as well, ‘if you’d like.’”

Tears sprang so quickly to Hannah’s eyes that they surprised even Gres, but she blinked them away just as rapidly, replying, “Thank you… Mother.”

“Of course,” T’Pel said again, and as Gres watched her so effortlessly wrangle her brood, he began to wonder if maybe, if they led this disjointed crew together, their journey wouldn’t be so difficult.

_He could only hope._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I blew through writing this whole story in a week and a half, guys! I don't know when I've written as much as I have in the past six weeks, and I'm personally loving it! That having been said, I have a few different ideas on how I want to end this series *sob* and I haven't quite made up my mind which way I want to go. So. I'm really, seriously asking for any form of feedback at this point so that I can get a better idea of what you guys adore about this universe I've created, what I should perhaps look at changing, anything like that, so that I can give this project a send-off that we would all like. Thanks in advance for your help!


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